


Like Vines We Intertwined

by astrangerenters



Category: Arashi (Band), Japanese Actor RPF
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Cunnilingus, F/M, Infidelity, Jealousy, Lies, Multi, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Rough Sex, Suburbia, Threesome - F/M/M, Undercover as Married, Unhealthy Relationships, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 21:00:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/816004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/pseuds/astrangerenters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Keiko's known, all Keiko's lived for the past several years is the life of a police officer. She knows absolutely nothing about being a housewife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's kind of an absurd set-up, but what can ya do?

Igarashi Shinya-san's street is like so many others in the suburban regions of Japan. Where Tokyo is overcrowded with apartment buildings of all shapes and sizes, Higashimaru has some room to breathe. It's a community full of cookie-cutter homes, differing only in the color of their siding. Two stories with a gated carport, tall hedges to keep the snoops away, and the feeling of "new" that the grime-covered buildings of Tokyo lack. Higashimaru is a housing estate built for employees of the Higashimaru Corporation, headquartered here in the southeast of Saitama Prefecture.

The Higashimaru Corporation deals mostly in disaster recovery. Its engineers scout areas immediately after disaster strikes - earthquakes, flooding, landslides. Its agents collaborate with local officials to determine how to rebuild and what infrastructure needs replacing. For years, the government has contracted out numerous projects to Higashimaru. With so many friends in the Diet, it would be near impossible to accuse the corporation of any wrongdoing. For surely their mission is a pure and honest one: to rebuild after catastrophe. To restore hope, to put things right again. To erase the stain of nature's wrath on Japanese towns who lack the means to erase it themselves.

Igarashi Shinya, Higashimaru's chairman of the board, has taken bribes and cut corners for at least a decade - to overcharge small communities, to fill orders with sub-standard materials. To point the finger at everyone but the corporation. Few know the totality of the corruption. After all, Higashimaru's employees are provided with marvelous housing and a decent wage. Most take pride in knowing their efforts are helping those less fortunate to rebuild their lives. If one Higashimaru employee sees an error in the books, he merely takes it to his supervisor. Who takes it to his. Who takes it to his. Surely someone will take care of the mistake. And so the matters are dropped. Because who would willingly forfeit their career? Everyone makes mistakes from time to time. 

Keiko's only just been brought in on Higashimaru. The case against Igarashi has been building for years, but they've never been able to corner him. The man's lawyered up like anyone in his position would be. What they need is a confession, verbal confirmation of his position as overseer of the corruption. His underlings have always been too loyal. Nobody will talk. "Higashimaru is a good firm," employees protest. "Typical government, looking for trouble where there is none. Looking for ways to waste our tax dollars."

Igarashi's office is unreachable. Thus far nobody's tried his house. If they manage to obtain evidence in the manner Keiko's new boss is suggesting, it will not be admissible in court. Igarashi's house lies between a family's and a single man's. It's part of his public image as the everyman, the friendly CEO and company chairman who lives among his employees. There's no getting to the other family's house. However, the house next to the single man's will be vacant in one week. New tenants can move right in.

With some finagling, Keiko will be in that house in a week's time. Her mission (and she has no choice but to accept it) is to befriend her neighbor. The single man, Sakurai Sho. Because from the second story bathroom window of Sakurai's house, there is a line of sight over Igarashi's walls and straight into his study. By planting listening devices and cameras in Sakurai's home, they may be able to catch Igarashi in the act. It's inadmissible but may be enough to open a more official inquiry. 

She's been on the squad for five years, and this will be her first deep cover. All evidence points to Sakurai Sho as a loyal, hardworking middle manager at Higashimaru - he's above suspicion. It's his house they need, that upstairs bathroom they need. "Break in and plant them when he's at work," had been Keiko's first response. Her bosses think differently. Igarashi has too many spies in the neighborhood. He'd know immediately. No, it's all about sneaking things into Sakurai's house.

"Get close. Let him open the door." Her boss tilts his head and smiles. "Be a charming neighbor."

Keiko merely nods and accepts the file folders. The new life that's been created for her. Officer Kitagawa Keiko, the youngest member of the squad, will no longer exist. She'll become a stranger. Her complete opposite. This isn't something she knows much about. She knows about chasing down criminals, breaking up fights, protecting the innocent. In the academy and on the job, she's fought to make a difference. To keep Japan safe. It's meant a lonely studio apartment, irregular sleep habits, and piles of dishes in the sink she has no time for. It's meant a lonely existence altogether. Work is everything.

But all that is about to change. Here there will be no criminals to chase and no fights to break up. And in this case, she's under orders to violate the privacy and break the trust of an innocent, this Sakurai Sho who has done nothing wrong. His only mistake was being assigned the house next to the company chairman.

All Keiko's known, all Keiko's lived for the past several years is the life of a police officer. She knows absolutely nothing about being a housewife.

\--

She remembers Matsumoto Jun from her early days in the academy. He'd been a beat cop in the neighborhood at the time, working his way up to a detective's badge. He's got the same swagger she remembers from the group dates some of the other girls from the academy had dragged her to. The same arrogant grin, those sexy little moles above and below those grinning lips, the same dark eyes that see more than he'd ever let on. "I don't date other cops," had been Keiko's motto at the time. Her only focus was completing her training, becoming a member of the squad. She didn't have time for guys like Matsumoto Jun then.

She has to make time for him now. Because on paper (in the file folder, in the fake certificates, in the fake family register entry) they're married. It's his third deep cover op, and he asks to meet for a coffee a week before they're set to move in to the Higashimaru estate. Getting off the beat and moving up the ladder hasn't softened him much. He's stylish. Not the signature trenchcoat or suit of a TV detective. Instead he's in a broken-in black leather jacket, tight jeans, and offers her a cigarette like it's the best offer she'll ever get in her life.

"Are you single, Matsumoto-san?" she asks after paying for their coffees (in a week's time, he'll be the sole breadwinner, and her pride won't allow her to lose to him if she can still help it).

He's got a model's face with big eyes, a strong bone structure. When he smiles, Keiko tries to keep up her professionalism like a shield. She remembers how the academy girls had fought each other to pour him drinks at the restaurants they'd visited. Getting picked by Matsumoto-san (Matsumoto- _sama_ , some of them had even called him) was a true victory. He was particular. Keiko had spent most of her time those nights texting on her phone, desperate to avoid drunken small talk and an unsatisfying fuck at a love hotel with one of Matsumoto's less attractive companions on the men's side of the table. 

And now, she thinks, now she'll be his demure little wife.

"I'm single," he says. "They don't force a married man into an op like this if they can help it. And you?"

He looks at her like he already knows the answer to the question. "I'm currently unattached." Currently detached, her mother would say. Are you going to be a cop all your life? What about my grandchildren? A little lipstick wouldn't hurt now and then, Kei-chan.

Matsumoto seems to like her answer. "Good," he says, leaning back in his seat and settling his hands behind his head, lacing his long fingers together against his jet black hair. "Don't need any jealous fools coming to break our cover."

If he thinks she'd be stupid enough to tell a boyfriend about her undercover work, he clearly hasn't listened to the office gossip. Kitagawa the virgin pure. Kitagawa the ice queen. She's neither of those things, not truly, but if rejecting all comers and acting aloof gets the boys' club to take her seriously, then she'll be that person for them.

They crack open the file folders. Sawada Shin. His wife, Sawada Reiko. Like Keiko, she's three years younger than him. Met while she was in college, became engaged within the first year and wed upon her graduation. He's a new transfer to Higashimaru's marketing department, she's a homemaker. Hoping to have a child soon. "Cute," Matsumoto says with a roll of his eyes. "Do we get to pick out names for our fake future baby?"

She allows a grin to cross her lips. "How about Doraemon? According to the file here, you're a fan."

"They don't skimp on details, do they?" Matsumoto sighs, flipping through more papers. It's a lot of homework, a lot to take in. A lot that they won't even be asked about their fake selves that they need to know anyhow.

They finish their coffee and it's time to really get to work. They spend the rest of the afternoon at headquarters crafting their lives. They change clothes, and Keiko finds herself in a wedding dress for the first time (hopefully not the last, she can hear her mother complaining). Unlike the bravado he projects elsewhere in the station, in the halls where he playfully smacks around a kohai or two, he holds her gently as they plaster on some smiles and pose for their "wedding photos." More evidence to decorate their new home together, more to complete the lie.

It's an unfamiliar feeling, having a man's arms around her waist. Smiling like she means it. She doesn't date cops. And the men she does date don't stick around long. A woman with a gun and a badge is too intimidating for most of them. She tugs a strand of hair behind her ear and smiles again when the photographer says "say cheese!"

Matsumoto will be entering the deception first, as he has employee orientation at Higashimaru in a few days and he'll be getting a crash course in life as a marketing lackey until then. When she next sees him they'll be driving up together in a small, conservative five-door hatchback, waiting for the movers. When she next sees him, she has to act like he's her husband.

She's about to leave when he pulls her out into the hallway. The door to the smoking booth down the hall has never stuck firm, and she can smell it lingering in the air. She tries to smell it so she doesn't smell him too closely instead. Having his arms around her, posing in a wedding dress...it's been a long day and her resolve is wearing thin already. They couldn't have picked someone ugly to team up with her?

He's four, maybe five inches taller than her, and she wishes she'd worn heels today to try and compete on a level playing field. Instead he looks down at her, lips quirking dangerously. "Kitagawa-san," he says politely. "I look forward to working with you. I believe you and I will be the ones to finally crack this case."

"I believe that, too," she agrees. Because Keiko doesn't allow for failure. She meets his eyes, knowing how easy it would be to let herself drown in them. She wonders how many women he's snared in the same manner. "Please take care of me."

"It's a husband's duty," he replies, patting her on the shoulder and walking away.

\--

Her new clothes are not the best use for taxpayer money. For work, Keiko normally wears jeans, a comfortable blouse, a blazer to add an air of professionalism. Sawada Reiko is neat and quiet, and she wears pearls with her plain blouse and knee-length floral skirt. Even for moving, Sawada Reiko apparently wants to dress to impress the neighbors. Keiko remembers hauling boxes around during her last move in a pair of sweats and a paint-splattered t-shirt, no bra.

Matsumoto's leather jacket is gone. Sawada Shin sits in his place. They may as well have leapt out of a cheesy commercial. She knows from his file that he's conveniently nearsighted like Matsumoto is, and his contacts have vanished. He's wearing a pair of black frames, and his hair has none of the gel and intentional tousling he'd opted for on their coffee meeting. It's combed neatly, fringe falling across his forehead attractively. He's got a Meiji University t-shirt and less form fitting jeans on with a pair of worn sneakers (Keiko supposes the sneakers are his own). They've turned him, she thinks while stifling a giggle, into a bit of a nerd.

His hands on the steering wheel of the Toyota Passo are perfectly steady. Keiko finds herself clutching the straps of her purse, wondering if she'll break their cover as soon as she exits the vehicle looking nothing like her real self. Will the people in the neighborhood see through her immediately?

They're just turning onto the street when he seems to sense her nervousness. He moves one hand off the wheel, slides it to the left to find her sweaty right hand. "Reiko, honey," he says with a voice that may as well be honey itself. "We'll do fine."

He's already switched Matsumoto Jun off, buried him away somewhere. The edge that had characterized their last meeting has disappeared. He's hopeful, optimistic, looking forward to the brand new start that seemed promised in the pages of their official op files. Keiko's already behind.

She's had a haircut. It stops at her shoulders now, and a cheerful red headband holds her fringe back. Her makeup is different, her nails are a pearlescent pink, and her shoes are open-toe wedges. She looks like a different person. She's not Keiko. She has to be Reiko.

She squeezes his hand in return, smiling brightly. Vapidly, Keiko would have judged in her most cynical of days. "I love you."

She sees a flicker of something quickly in his dark brown eyes, and even his glasses can't hide it. He swallows and keeps his attention firmly on the road. His hand drifts from hers and instead finds the gear shift as he pulls up to their new carport, the metal gate already pulled aside waiting for their arrival.

"I love you, too, sweetheart."

A family with three children lives in the tan house to one side. Their new house, three bedrooms, two baths, is a light blue. To the other side lies a carbon copy of theirs, save for a brown tiled roof instead of gray like their own. Sakurai Sho's house. They exit the car, stretch as Keiko joins her "husband" at the front door. He's already jingling their house keys in his hand.

"Our house. Yours and mine," he says a bit theatrically, and she smiles as charmingly as she can muster. He twists the key in the lock and pulls the door open. "After you."

They're only waiting for the major furniture now: the bedroom set, living room, and dining room furniture. In boxes labeled "Dishes and China" are surveillance equipment. Jun picks it up first thing and starts hauling it upstairs. The honeymoon's over, and there's work to be done.

They spend the next few hours unpacking the boxes. Clothes, toiletries, kitchenware. It's a large house. She'd grown up with her parents and brother in Kobe in a house maybe half this size (and three or four times older). The rooms are large and airy, windows are abundant. The hall just inside past the genkan is an open plan with a chandelier hanging down from the ceiling and a curved stairway leading up to their three bedrooms. One for the couple, one for guests, and a third for the baby they hope will be on the way once they settle in. Jun will be sleeping in the guest bedroom. This has all been detailed in the files.

The movers arrive with the rest of the furniture, and Keiko almost feels like this is truly her house as she gives the moving men orders on how to arrange the sofa and tea table while Jun hooks up their television and the wireless router for Internet service.

It's nightfall when they finish, collapsing on the couch at opposite ends. She's long since abandoned the pearls on her new upstairs vanity table, the matching earrings with them. Even with the A/C running, Jun's worked up a sweat, and the Meiji t-shirt clings to him. The leather jacket had been hiding his broad, muscled shoulders, the pale skin of his arms, his toned biceps. He leans forward for the TV remote control, finally distracting her from letting the sight of him soak in.

Today is Saturday and on Monday, Jun will be reporting to work. Conveniently he's in Sakurai Sho's division. It's Jun's job to cozy up to their neighbor at the office, get the ball rolling. And it's Keiko's job to make friends in the neighborhood. Let Sawada and wife become familiar, normal, so that Igarashi and any spies he has along the street don't suspect a thing.

Jun changes the channel to a soccer game. "The adventure begins," he announces with a tone of amusement in his voice. "Won't you go draw my bath, honey?"

She turns to look at him, quirking an eyebrow. "You have two legs to carry you upstairs, right?"

He frowns. "Aww, but Reiko..."

He draws out the syllables in her new name, so close to her own that it'll be a difficult adjustment. Is this how it's going to be? She's cooperated quite a bit already, but is he really expecting her to do these sorts of things? What's next? His laundry? Yes, his laundry, the voice of her mother insists. Of course his laundry. Even a fake marriage sends Keiko spiraling into all the ways she's disappointed her family. All the things she doesn't know how to do perfectly after years alone.

She gets up in a huff, making an extra effort to stomp up the stairs as best she can. There's a bathroom attached to the master bedroom, Keiko's bedroom. He doesn't get to use that tub. Instead she moves to the end of the hall. She angrily shoves the plug into the drain and turns on the hot water, sitting on the edge of the tub. 

He's only doing this to get a rise out of her, and she should know that. She shouldn't let it bother her. This is her job, like it or not now. She lets the water run over her fingers, adjusting the dial to heat it up a little more. To be considerate of her husband's feelings and comfort. A bath of her own sounds pretty nice. When the tub's ready, she heads back down the hall, leaning over the bannister to peer into their new living room. He looks up at her approach, smiling in triumph.

"Your bath awaits, Your Majesty."

He hops to his feet, tiredness be damned, and merrily bounds up the stairs, more a little kid than a grown man. It seems like the undercover life suits Matsumoto Jun just fine. He's all too happy to play the salaryman, though she imagines he'll soon miss running down criminals in the streets and waving his gun around. 

When he breezes past her, he manages to lean in and kiss her cheek before grabbing some towels they've just put into the hall closet. "Thanks!" he calls before closing the bathroom door behind him.

\--

He doesn't seem willing to risk coming close again the following day. They continue unpacking, and when it's finally done, down to the last book in the bookcase, they go to the store and pick up groceries. It's the most simple, mundane thing in the world, and they go up and down the aisles, him pushing the cart and Keiko with a shopping list in hand.

He frowns at some of the things she throws in the cart, mostly of the unhealthy snack variety, but she gently reminds him in her new "Reiko voice" that some of these are his favorites. It doesn't seem as though Sawada Shin is as concerned about his figure as lady killer Matsumoto Jun. Such is the plight of the settled-down husband.

They load the groceries in the car and head back, and it's then that the neighbors find them. They haven't seen a peep from Sakurai Sho's house beside them, no car in the drive since they've moved in. But the couple on their other side comes calling. While Keiko puts away groceries, she receives a thorough welcome to the neighborhood from Suzuki Michiko-san, a decade older than Keiko who invites herself inside with a freshly baked sponge cake as payment. Michiko-san's bland-looking husband, Teruo, stays outside with Jun.

It doesn't take long to discover that Michiko-san is only the first wave. Tomorrow "once the men have gone," Michiko-san says like it's preferable, she'll take Keiko around the neighborhood. The neighbors have been desperate for someone to move in because an empty house on Igarashi-san's street seems impossible. Keiko takes in as much as she can, steering the conversation to Igarashi-san's home. Being a busy CEO, he's only at home a few nights a week. His wife is a jet setter and involved in half a dozen charities.

"They do such good work," Michiko-san says without a trace of irony in her voice. It appears that she and her family take pride in where they live, so close to the head of Higashimaru. It sounds almost like brainwashing to Keiko, but to Reiko it has to sound amazing.

It takes a few hours, but the Suzukis finally leave. It's dusk when Keiko sees a car pulling into the carport of the house next to them. "Sakurai," she announces to Jun, who's doing his best to memorize the Higashimaru employee handbook. He bolts out of his seat, joins her at the curtains where they peep out at their new neighbor. At the innocent man their job is forcing them to manipulate.

He gets out of the car, and suddenly Keiko wishes she didn't know as much about him as she already does. It's one thing to read the basic profile the squad cobbled together on him - Sakurai Sho, 31 years old, management track. It's another to see him in the flesh and know they'll have to lie to him. There's exhaustion and loneliness in every movement - opening the car door, shuffling to pull a duffel bag from his back seat, fumbling and dropping his house keys in front of the door with an inaudible but obvious sigh.

"Poor guy," Jun mumbles, as though he's reading Keiko's mind.

On paper, Sakurai Sho is a widower. A workaholic since his wife died in a car accident two years prior. No children. In person, it's all too visible in the sloppy way he's dressed. Nobody's taking care of him. Jeans too big for him, an old hooded sweatshirt, one of his shoes barely laced up. His hair needs a trim, his face seems a little puffy from lack of sleep. He'd be handsome, very handsome, if he cared about such things anymore. Keiko sees all this, absorbs it in a manner of seconds before he's through the door and shutting them out.

"I don't like this," she admits, deciding that Jun can tease her as he likes.

Instead she feels his fingers brush her shoulder for a brief instant before heading back to his manuals and the improvement of his lies. "I don't either."

Keiko moves upstairs, changing into pajamas. She finds that her bedroom window faces Sakurai's house and apparently his own master bedroom. The lights are on, and the blinds are slightly open, allowing her to peep inside. All she sees is Sakurai Sho sitting alone on an unmade bed, duffel bag at his feet, staring at nothing.

She turns away from the window.

\--

Sleep doesn't come easily. She's used to her own bed, her own small apartment. The sirens in the street, the hustle and bustle of people hurrying for the subway station nearby before the trains stop for the night. Out here it's quiet. Just the idyllic sound of chirping crickets, the occasional bark of a dog. She's surprised by how much she wants the noise back.

She wakes and heads downstairs, finding herself making breakfast for two. Jun comes downstairs just as she's sliding a slightly overcooked fried egg onto a plate for him. Cooking has never been her strongest suit. He's halfway dressed for his new job, neatly attired in the gray slacks and black leather belt of his suit, white dress shirt showing off the broadness of his shoulders, the way his body tapers down to his rather narrow waist. 

He sits at the table, face a bit surprised as she brings over a fresh pot of coffee and gets ready to pour. "How do you like it?" she asks him quietly. "It's something I need to know."

When he looks up at her, something's different. For the first time, he doesn't seem to be looking down on her, his kohai on the force. He's seeing her as his partner for this job. Maybe even an equal. "Black is fine," he says, reaching for some pepper to probably disguise her egg massacre. "And thanks."

As they eat, they go over the week's plan. Despicable as Igarashi Shinya is, taking him down in a flash is not their assignment. They're playing the long game, getting established in the neighborhood, looking to be trusted. During the work week, Jun will be cozying up to Sakurai, looking for a way to break through, establish something that will hopefully blossom into a friendship. Keiko herself will steer clear, instead bolstering the couple's reputation in the neighborhood. That means playing nice with the other wives, learning her place at the bottom of the neighborhood food chain. This Keiko knows she can accomplish - being one of the only women on the force has taught her how to make the most of a frustrating situation and social position.

Jun thanks her for the meal, sounding sincere. Or maybe he's a really good liar, she thinks as she clears the table and he heads back upstairs to finish dressing. She's rinsing the plates when he comes up to her, his tie hanging loose around his neck. When she turns, he's looking at her expectantly.

"Something wrong?" The water in the sink continues to flow.

"Maybe you could tie this for me?"

"Do you not know how?"

He raises an eyebrow. The Jun from the coffee shop, the Jun from those group dates returns in an instant. "Of course I know how." He leans a bit into her space, switching off the faucet and holding up one of the ends of his tie and wiggling it a bit. "I just thought maybe you should do it."

You thought wrong, she wants to tell him. She's not his servant. She's his colleague. If nobody is there to see them, how much of the charade must they keep up? Isn't it enough that she made him breakfast?

Instead she dries her hands on a towel and turns to face him. He's watching, gauging her reaction. She grasps hold of both ends of the tie a bit roughly, and the motion propels him closer. But he's quick on his feet and not off balance for long. Her aggression has won her some points, she can see it in his eyes. Even though the air in the room seems heavier, more charged with their small battle, she focuses on getting it tied, manipulating the fabric with her small fingers until it's utterly perfect.

"There. Satisfactory?"

"Quite satisfactory," he says a bit mockingly, strolling off to get his jacket and briefcase. "Well, I'll be heading out."

"Have a nice day," she replies, turning the sink back on. From the kitchen window she sees Sakurai's empty kitchen, spying him coming out the door just in time with Jun. Jun who waves, smiles, says hello. Sakurai who only nods. They're dressed similarly, Jun and Sakurai, but Keiko knows that Sho had to attend to his tie on his own.

\--

By the end of their first week in the neighborhood, Keiko has already been invited to attend the next meeting of the community council (with her husband, of course). She thinks that the attractiveness of her "husband" has a lot to do with how well the others are treating her. Sawada Shin with that big smile, that handsome intellectual look to him. It's as though Jun knew exactly what he was doing in opting for glasses over contacts. A young, good looking couple on the street makes Higashimaru seem all the more perfect.

Keiko's got a notebook full of "helpful reminders" already from Michiko-san and the chatterbox hens who litter the street and follow Michiko-san's lead. They're nice, Keiko thinks, except when they're vicious. Keiko as the newcomer can still be molded into their image. They haven't found fault with her yet, although she's quite certain they're already gossiping behind her back about some deficiency or another - her hair? Or maybe her clothes? That she hasn't had a baby yet with her gorgeous husband? She's 26 after all, shouldn't they be getting on that? They're so insulated, so out of touch that Keiko finds half-moon shaped indentations in her palms from her fingernails daily, keeping in her irritation while she smiles and tells them she hopes for a little Sawada someday soon. 

Their advice is drilled into her brain. What she'd give for her service weapon and the range and a target, bang bang bang. Garbage day is on x day and this is how we set it out. And this is the recycling schedule so please be diligent about your plastics! Tending our gardens and plants on a regular rotation keeps the community attractive (and we will definitely let you know if you're not keeping up, they imply). Every June we hold a little block party here, and if he can, Igarashi-san attends. Please bring your best dishes!

Jun must have it easier, Keiko is convinced. After turning up with money to buy lunch in the cafeteria his first day, somehow word had gotten around, and now Keiko rises even earlier to put together a bento for him to take. Sometimes he helps, slicing veggies into irritatingly cute shapes so people can praise his wife for being so darling. He returns late every night, sometimes after 10:00 PM even though he's just started. Working late, come his texts. Drinking with my new colleagues. Must be hard work indeed.

As to Sakurai Sho, Keiko's usually making dinner for herself (and some to set aside for Jun to wolf down when he returns) when he gets home. The neighborhood ladies talk about him in the most pitying of tones. Not so secretly, they wish for him to move away and take his sad aura with him. His car pulls up, he gets out and loosens his tie, disappears into the large, empty house. Apparently Sakurai used to be a member of an informal company soccer club - Jun's already talked himself onto the team, and the only interactions he's had with Sakurai have been about said team, maybe getting him to come back.

His wife died, she grumbles, and you're pushing him to play soccer. His wife died, he shoots back, and that was two years ago.

Headquarters gets an emailed update from them, a joint report that lists their accomplishments and progress. Jun receives nothing but praise for his quick work at becoming a team player. Keiko receives little commentary. "Maybe I should have asked for a few recipe suggestions for the block party," she complains.

Every night is the same. Jun comes home late, and she already has his bath water drawn and his clothes laid out for the next day. She reads a magazine about keeping a clean home, cooking healthy meals, and using energy wisely. She looks out her window and watches Sakurai Sho turn out the light in his bedroom.

\--

"He's coming for dinner," Jun reports one evening in their second week, his legs propped up on the table and his work computer in his lap. "Sakurai Sho. Tomorrow."

Keiko nearly flings the remote control at him. But that would be needless waste, Michiko-san clucks in her head. "And you're telling me this now?"

Jun types up whatever report he's working on. Apparently his job mostly consists of writing reports, attending meetings, and talking about "developing a rapport with both the public and our stakeholders in a consistent, forward-thinking manner." Whatever that means. "I've been having lunch with him. I asked him today. I told him it was silly for us to be neighbors and not get to know one another."

"You didn't leave him much choice, did you?"

"Oh no," Jun brags, "there was a whole group of us eating, so he couldn't possibly decline without looking rude to his kohai. If anything, he should be inviting us over, but given his situation..."

Keiko fumes at Jun's casual switch-up of their relationship with Sakurai Sho. Now he'll be in the house, tasting her cooking? She makes an irritated little squeal and leaves Jun in the living room, hurrying to the kitchen cabinets, frowning. "What do I cook for the person we're trying to manipulate?"

He laughs and it carries in from the living room. "He eats cafeteria slop every day. Or ramen. I think he'll eat just about anything."

She hovers in the doorway, staring at him as he continues typing while the news broadcast blares on. "You're moving too fast."

He doesn't even turn. "You look bored. I'm doing this for you."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He saves his file, shuts the laptop and gets to his feet. His slippers scuff lazily across the wood floor. "You're trapped here all day," he explains, something like sympathy plain on his face. "Maybe you can get to him in ways I haven't. Two weeks in and he's not joining the soccer team, and even though we live next door and work in the same building, he keeps turning me down for the carpool."

It seems as though Jun's been able to work his charm on everyone at Higashimaru but the one person he's supposed to. She can see a bit of irritation in his eyes. "And what can I possibly do to befriend him?"

Jun hesitates, looks pained. Genuine thoughtfulness is taking place. "Maybe I'm cheating on you."

Rage flares up for the briefest of moments before Keiko realizes what he means. "You're cheating on me?"

"Not really," he says, looking embarrassed. The tips of his ears turn a little pink. "But what if I was? Maybe you don't know. Maybe Sakurai sees me, catches me doing something I shouldn't?"

Keiko shakes her head. "I've spent all this time talking about how happy we are with the neighborhood ladies. You're a saint."

"And I'll still be a saint for them. But just think about it. Sakurai, he's lonely, sees a pretty woman being wronged..." Keiko decides not to comment on Jun's assessment of her attractiveness. "Maybe he'll open up to you. Want to help you. Comfort you."

She stares up at him, ignoring what 'comfort' might really imply. "You don't think this is a bit drastic?"

Jun shrugs. "I don't know, let's just have him over. I think he'll like you."

"Oh really? And what's so likable about me?"

His movement is so sudden she forgets her training. His fingers are under her chin, tilting it upward so she has no choice but to look at him. "Everything."

She regains her composure and wrenches away from him. "You're going to push me towards him. And you think headquarters will like it?"

He smirks. "Unless you can convince him to join the soccer club..."

The conversation ends there. She goes up and draws his bath despite how much he's enraged her. "Everything," his words echo. What's so likable about her? "Everything."

As she sits on the edge of the tub, angry, she wonders just what's got her so worked up. They're not really married - him "cheating" on her, real or fictional, shouldn't matter. Maybe it's Sakurai, the sight of his loneliness every day. Can she really say she cares about him, worries about him when she doesn't even know him? When she knows she has to betray him?

She can understand Jun's frustration. His first week had been so promising, but he's stalled. If they don't get Sakurai, they can't move forward. And his little cheating scenario, self-serving as it is, holds merit. Objectively, a man like Sakurai still in mourning might easily fall for any woman who gives him the slightest bit of attention. Especially a lonely housewife whose husband is disrespecting her. And Jun, with his squad reputation as a ladies' man, is probably itching for an excuse to go bed some young beauty. He's got a lady at home who cooks and irons and cleans, but maybe it's not enough for him. A long work day and a cold, empty bed every night. 

Not that the thought of sleeping with Jun hasn't crossed her mind. Much as she's tried to fight it, it's difficult when she's making his food with as much care as she can manage. Smelling the scent of him on his work shirts and tees before she tosses them in the wash. His cheerful "I'm home"s every night, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Being alone in bed every night with the crickets chirping and wondering what he looks like when he sleeps, if he shuts down the playboy act and becomes the prince she's told the neighborhood wives he is. She's forced to speak glowingly of him all the time. Maybe she's started to believe her own bullshit.

She brings her fingers nervously to her chin, to where he'd touched her. She'd be a liar if she said it did nothing to her. After all, if he's a little lonely, who's to say she isn't, too?

When she shuts off the faucet, he's in the doorway. She doesn't even want to know how long he's been standing there, watching her stare into space. "We've got that grill," he says as his only apology for springing his plans on her. "If you pick up some things at the store, we can just grill some meat and veggies in the living room. Put a game on, keep it low key."

Wordlessly she gets up and walks over to him. He's been working in the living room in his dress shirt still. He's rolled up the sleeves, wrinkled the damn thing so it'll take her a lifetime tomorrow getting it perfect again. Her fingers find their way to his buttons, and he seems to be holding his breath as she slowly undoes the button at the top. She trails down to the second button, even slower this time. It seems she's wanted to do this for so long, and only now that she's actually doing it does she acknowledge the impulse.

When she reaches the bottom, she steps back. "I'll put this in the laundry room. Have a nice bath."

He slides out of the shirt, not saying a thing even as she gets her first glimpse of his pale skin, the flatness of his stomach, the dark promise of hair below his navel that disappears into his trousers. His muscled arms, the sharp angles of his collarbone. She takes the shirt from him and hurries down to the laundry room, wondering just what the hell's come over her.


	2. Chapter 2

She's taken money from her own stash to buy some decent beer for the dinner. The Sawadas' budget is fairly modest, but they have a guest tonight. The pair of them arrive home at 7:00 PM, Sakurai stopping at his own place to change into jeans and a t-shirt at Jun's insistence.

She's worn a light, flowery perfume, something Michiko-san had recommended on a shopping excursion a few days earlier. She wonders if it actually suits her. Where Jun is all long, graceful limbs, Sakurai Sho is a little more compact. A little shorter than Jun, shoulders narrower and full of tension. When he looks at her to say "Good evening, Sawada-san. Pleased to meet you," she notices that he has the prettiest eyes she's ever seen on a man before. A mouth full of slightly crooked, slightly large, slightly charming teeth hidden behind plump, dangerous lips. She thinks of all the things the neighborhood women say about him - how he was before compared to how he is now. Before Jun, it seems that Sakurai Sho was the prince of the street, the envy of all the wives with husbands who simply couldn't compare.

Keiko disappears into the kitchen to grab the trays of meat she's prepared, some that she's marinated according to Jun's detailed instructions. It's too bad they can't swap places. He's the better cook. When she returns, they've seated themselves at opposite ends of the living room tea table, Jun to the left and Sho to the right, leaving her to sit between them.

She distributes small plates and pours their beer while Jun takes charge of the grilling. Sakurai is full of "thank you"s for every small kindness, which endears him to Keiko immediately. She can see traces of who he might have been before while they eat. He eats well, maybe even too much, but it doesn't stop him and Jun from debating everything from European soccer teams to the current direction of the marketing department. He seems reasonably comfortable in Jun's presence since they both like to talk. Keiko's more a dutiful waitress than anything, refilling beers and giving Jun a slight poke with her finger when it's time to turn the meat over on the little grill they've got set up on the table.

Jun's phone rings, and she jumps a bit. This is his phone for Sawada Shin, not their personal handsets that are concealed in their rooms. He makes an apologetic face and gets up. "I'm sorry, I have to take this," he murmurs and heads upstairs, leaving her with Sakurai Sho, near empty plates of food, and very little to talk about.

She makes to clear their places, and he rises to help. "Ah, Sawada-san, won't you let me assist you?" His language is still rather polite despite how much beer he and Jun have gone through in so short a time. She doesn't dare leave him alone, so she accepts his offer. Jun still hasn't come down, and she finds her fingers accidentally grazing Sakurai's when he hands the plates over. She doesn't miss the flash of alarm in his eyes, and she interrupts before he gets a chance to apologize.

"I'm so glad you could come by, Sakurai-san. We've met up with most people in the neighborhood save for you. I hope you'll forgive this humble meal..."

His eyes widen. "No, no, Sawada-san, it was wonderful. Thank you for your kindness. I uh," he hesitates. Like Jun, he seems to choose all his words carefully. "It's been a while since I've done something like this."

I know, Keiko wants to say, thinking of the take-out bags she sees him bring into the house all the time or the delivery cars pulling up. "Well, Shin-kun is still getting to know everyone at the office, but he speaks highly of you and since you're right next door..."

"Right, of course."

She smiles at him, lets it linger a bit longer than she should. "Of course."

It's like the man doesn't know how to interact with women, odd since he was married. Maybe he'd managed it with one and others are a trickier proposition. They return to the living room, and he thanks her profusely again for pouring him another glass of beer. 

Jun returns, looking a little suspicious. Since Jun is usually pretty laid back, she suspects he's already planting seeds for this master plan of his. "Who was it?" she asks, knowing it's what he wants to push the deception forward.

"Nobody important," he says breezily, and Sakurai takes a long, measured sip of his beer. Nobody important even though he just had to take the call? Perhaps Jun's actually started the deception, dropped hints to him at work, and Keiko's only learning about it now.

When the two men exhaust their points of contention regarding the Japanese national soccer team, Sakurai apologizes and says it's time for him to be going home. Jun walks him to the door, Keiko too. As he slips back into his shoes, Keiko tries not to look awkward as Jun puts a rather possessive arm around her middle, holding her tight so Sakurai can see. His hand rests on her hip in a way that he shouldn't do in front of neighbors. Already offering Sakurai a challenge. Keiko doesn't like feeling like a piece of meat on the living room grill, but she doesn't dare shrug him away.

Sakurai tells Jun he'll see him on Monday. He turns to her next, and his smile grows a fraction larger. It's a warm, genuine smile, unlike the practiced ones she and Jun employ so often. She's drawn in so easily, seeing the man the neighborhood used to love. She understands it, hates that he's still in so much pain. And you, Keiko, you'll just cause him more.

Jun shuts and locks the door. Together they calmly clear the remainder of the table, unplug the griller and bring it to the kitchen. She's just about to get the sink on, the task almost routine by now, when he stops her with a hand to her arm. She's facing the sink, facing the window that faces Sakurai's kitchen.

Jun moves, steps behind her and his fingers find her shoulders. She sighs in half-gratitude, half-pure enjoyment when he starts to massage without making a sound. She feels boneless, her head slumping forward as Jun's hands, his long, thin fingers knead into her too tense muscle, his thumbs finding particular points of stress and rubbing them away.

"Jun, why are you..."

"Ssh," he replies, close to her ear.

She should move away because he smells like a few beers too many. He smells like alpha male nonsense after that odd display in the genkan. But he smells like Jun, with his playful eyes and gorgeous body. They've played house for two weeks, and this is the most he's dared to touch her. She's wearing her pearls (maybe she wore them for Sakurai Sho) and his fingers slide up to her neck, fumbling with the catch. She highly doubts this is how life for Shin and Reiko would ever be.

She brings up her hand, pulls her hair up and out of the way. He manages to unclasp the necklace, pulling it away from her. He replaces the empty place on her neck with his mouth, and she stands quite still, hand still tangled up in her hair as he kisses the soft skin there. His lips linger, sending heat through her as he sucks a bit at the skin, just enough to not leave a mark. But just enough to say "here I am."

She's surprised by how quickly she's undone by him, shutting her eyes and gripping the edge of the sink when he moves his attention away from her neck. He pulls aside her blouse, her bra strap, baring her shoulder to him. The women in the neighborhood sometimes moan and complain about the lack of physicality from their husbands, their coldness. But Jun runs hot, pulling up even closer and wrapping his other arm around her, hugging her back against him while he continues to tease with his mouth and teeth against her shoulder, then back to her neck. The necklace is gripped in the hand clutched against her belly, and she knows this needs to stop. 

"I should clean up," she mumbles, thinking of protocol. Of the million reasons why they shouldn't be doing this. Might one of those reasons be Sakurai Sho? When he releases her and steps back, she clears her throat and lets her hair fall back. "Was that your mistress on the phone earlier?"

He only chuckles and walks away, leaving her to struggle with how much she didn't want him to stop.

\--

Work swallows up all of Jun's time during the next two weeks. Maybe he's started to believe his own lies, that he's a legitimate Higashimaru employee. He's a mere shadow at home, disappearing after breakfast and returning when Keiko's changing for bed. Some nights she finds herself leaving her bedroom door slightly ajar, wondering if he'll take it as an invitation. Because the rules say he shouldn't, and the rules say she shouldn't, but she spends half her days daydreaming about that mouth of his and the other places it might visit. They're professionals, aren't they? Maybe if they had sex the tension between them would ease, and they could focus on the job better.

The neighborhood senses trouble in paradise, and they're quick to pounce. "Shin-san sure keeps late hours. He's not working too hard, is he?" Michiko-san asks. You're not pushing him away, are you? A man like that and you a frigid bitch? What a shame.

One night when she's in the kitchen, her Sawada Reiko phone rings. It's Jun. 

"I'm staying late again, I'm very sorry." He sounds like he means it, which implies he's in mixed company. "But would it be a bother if I had Sho-san pop in to check on you? I hate to leave you alone all the time, honey."

She crinkles her nose at 'honey' before fully understanding what Jun's doing. It doesn't matter what she says in reply because she's in an empty house. "What the hell are you playing at?"

"I'll eat while I'm out," he continues in his cheerful voice. "Please let Sho-san join you for dinner."

"The women in the neighborhood will see! They know you're not home, and they'll see him coming in!"

"I love you, too." Then he hangs up.

Keiko lets out a scream into one of the kitchen towels. He never gives her ideas or opinions a second thought. The neighborhood already suspects something is up. Shin's the cheater, not Reiko!

Despite herself, she lets the chicken bake while she hurries upstairs. She switches from slacks to a colorful knee-length skirt that shows off her legs. She pinches some color into her cheeks. She opts for eyeliner. Sawada Reiko, anything but frigid. When she gets back downstairs the kitchen timer dings and so does the doorbell.

She pulls the chicken out first and hurries to open the door, finding an apologetic Sakurai Sho waiting there. He takes her in a moment before steadying himself. "Ah, Sawada-san, your husband was rather insistent..."

I bet he was, Keiko thinks. She steps back, ushering him in and making a point to offer him one of Jun's pairs of slippers, the softest ones. If Sho realizes that he's not being offered guest slippers, he keeps it to himself. "It smells so good in here," he says, heading for the living room.

"Let's eat properly, shall we?" Keiko says defiantly, gesturing instead for Sho to move to the dining room. Keiko spends most evenings eating in here alone, Jun's plate covered to keep it warm whenever he comes back.

Sho mostly gets in the way, trying to help her in the kitchen and in setting the table. He fumbles around with the place settings, which simply makes her laugh, and is at a loss for how best to serve the chicken. "Please, take the larger thigh. It's too much for me," she insists. "Oh, one more thing."

She returns to the kitchen, finds the bottle of white wine she'd bought on a whim the other day, thinking of splitting it with Jun on the weekend. Instead she uncorks it and brings out two glasses for her and Sakurai. If Jun can have his fun, so will she.

"Oh, you're going to so much trouble for me," Sho mutters, clearly embarrassed, even though his mouth is watering at the meal she's prepared.

"It's lonely eating by yourself, isn't it?" she admits, and it's the truth. It was never a bother in her apartment on her own, but eating in this big house by herself has become depressing. She can only imagine how much more difficult it is for Sho. And as soon as she realizes what she's said, she blushes for real. "Forgive me, Sakurai-san, that was insensitive..."

He slices into his dinner. "You have nothing to apologize for."

He praises her non-stop while he eats. Jun's usually a little more restrained with his compliments, if only because he knows he can do better. Sho, however, must be completely incompetent in the kitchen if Keiko's rosemary chicken is top notch eating. But she happily accepts his praise, if only because she's received so little of it lately. From her "husband," from headquarters, from the women in the neighborhood.

When they finish, there's half the bottle left and she insists they move to the living room couch. She keeps the television off and pours for him. He seems a little uncomfortable since he's taken the right cushion and she's taken the middle instead of the left. Close quarters. "Now," Keiko says, setting the empty bottle on the table and getting comfortable with her legs curled up at her side. "I want to know everything about what you and Shin get up to at work."

"There's not much to tell," he says, taking a nervous sip. "We're salarymen, through and through."

Keiko wonders if Jun's really at work right now or if he's found someone to be with. Has he seduced one of the younger women at work? A cute little secretary fresh out of college? It wouldn't be hard to do with those eyes of his, that smile. If the wine is adding to her rather confusing feelings of jealousy, then let it. It will only help their real cause sitting right in front of her, the cause she's clearly working harder on at present. "Shin-kun doesn't talk to me about it much," she says shyly. "Actually, we haven't spoken much at all lately. Is there some tough project taking up all his attention?"

"Ah," Sakurai mumbles, "I...I think so..." Yep, Keiko confirms, Jun's definitely making sure that Sakurai knows what's going on.

She reaches forward, hand to his upper arm. There are strong muscles there, tightly wound and tense. "Oh, I'm so glad. I was thinking I'd done something wrong. If it's work, then I want him to do his best. I was so worried it was something I'd done or said..."

He seems frozen in place, has been since she's touched him and hasn't yet let go. His eyes are dark, his hair falling across his brow messily. She can tell what he's thinking. How can Shin do what he's doing? How can Shin do this to someone like Reiko? Just as Jun's planned all along.

"We're just very busy. I can't imagine Shin-kun finding any fault with you."

"Do you think so?" she says, looking down and finally letting him go. Even through his shirt, he'd been so hot to the touch. She can see little beads of perspiration on his face. She's too close, and he doesn't know what to do.

She changes the subject, away from her obviously cheating husband and her complete obliviousness. Instead she finds herself asking Sho about Igarashi Shinya, what it's like to live next to the CEO. He rarely sees him, but that's only because Sho keeps to himself, Keiko knows. The talk turns to the neighborhood, to the block party in a few weeks, and of course to the company soccer team.

"Shin's been trying to get you to join up, hasn't he?" she inquires. "What position do you play?"

She lets him ramble on - too busy to play, getting old and can't keep up (oh, don't be silly, she cries with another pat to his sleeve), other things to occupy his time. The hands on the clock move more than she even realizes.

When the wine is gone she takes their glasses to the kitchen. When she comes back, Sho looks uncomfortable. "I can leave if you wish. Shin-kun thought you'd be lonely and told me to stay until he came home, but I think that's up to you..."

"He's so sweet, thinking of me like that," she says, lie burning like acid. Twist the knife, Keiko. "You're welcome to stay as long as you like, Sakurai-san. It's lovely to have company. You should come again when my husband's busy."

Sho visibly winces. "Ah, maybe I should go though, it's getting late..."

Together they hear the key turn in the lock. Jun's home.

Keiko moves to the genkan, Sho at her heels. When she sees Jun, she wonders if he could be any more blatant. His hair's mussed, and there's obvious lipstick on his collar. Wow. Subtle. She beams at the sight of him. "Welcome home!"

She can just sense Sho behind her, his eyes probably burning a hole through Jun. Jun shifts his suit jacket, covering up his collar so he can lean forward and kiss her on the cheek. "I thought you'd be in bed by now. Sho-kun, you're a life saver. Thanks for looking after her for me. I've been so neglectful."

Sho's not a confrontational person because he lets Jun's behavior slide, at least in front of her. "We're neighbors, aren't we? I'm happy to visit. Especially if Reiko-san's cooking."

"That good, huh?" Jun says, slipping out of his shoes. Keiko knows he's already noticed the slippers on Sakurai's feet. She doesn't care. "Well I'm exhausted..."

Sho makes his excuses, unable to look at either of them as he waves goodbye and Jun shuts the door. As soon as Sho's gone, he raises an eyebrow at her. "My slippers?"

She shrugs. "You weren't home."

"Cute." He goes without slippers entirely, entering the house and tossing his briefcase on the couch. "I'll just have a shower tonight."

Keiko cleans up, her stomach knotted and twisted with all the lies. She genuinely likes Sakurai Sho. Unlike Jun, whose real self comes out to play only when it suits him, Sho wears his heart on his sleeve. He's gentle and kind, and in another world, he'd be the perfect escape from a rough day on the squad. Having him to come home to...

She rolls her eyes. She's played him false from the beginning. Who is she kidding? Once everything's clean, she heads upstairs and takes her own shower. Once in her nightgown, she moves to the other bathroom, finding the clump of Jun's clothes deposited on the floor. He's usually not this rude, and she diligently picks them up, sighing at the too obvious lipstick on the stark white dress shirt. She brings everything down to the laundry room, heading upstairs to find his door closed. Seems he's not in the mood for a recap of the night's activities.

But when she turns on the lamp on her bedside table, ready to do a bit of reading before bed, she's startled to find him already in the bed, comfortably settled under the sheets without a shirt. She prays he's not naked in her bed. "Jun!" she cries, jumping back.

"Looks like you did a good job tonight," he says. The shower has washed away Sawada Shin, the glasses are gone, and Matsumoto Jun's reemerged. 

She thinks about the lipstick. "Who is she?"

He grins. "I didn't fuck her if that's what you're all jumpy about."

She scowls at his crudeness. "Who is she?"

He rolls over onto his back, raising his arms up and settling his hands behind his head. She's desperate to look anywhere but at his strong arms, all the places she wants to taste. The memory of that night in the kitchen comes roaring back, how easily she could have let him take her right there and then. He's never dared to enter her bedroom before, but here he is.

"She's convenient for the story," he explains. "Just a girl from the mail room. Again, we didn't have sex. Just had a little fun at a bar. I'm not in the business of taking advantage of drunk twenty year olds."

"She's twenty?!"

He laughs. "You really are jealous, aren't you? I don't understand it, you've got Sho-kun eating out of your hand like a trained dog already..."

She stomps her feet childishly. "That's different!"

Jun gasps theatrically. "You _like_ him!"

"So what?"

Jun's smile turns bitter. "I just thought you liked me more."

Oh no, not his precious ego. She pushes the covers down, moves to sit cross-legged on the bed. "Maybe I do like you, against my better judgment. If anyone's jealous, Matsumoto Jun, it's you."

This piques his interest. He takes one hand away from the back of his head, rests it on her knee. She wonders which of them will cave in first. "I won't sleep with them," he vows. "I'll do whatever it takes to let Sho-kun think I am, though."

"You can sleep with them," she finds herself saying, even as she finds it difficult to look away from his eyes, the way they're raking up and down her body. She suddenly wants them only on her. "You think I mind?"

"I think you do. I think you would."

"What about Sho-kun? You want me to pursue that, don't you?" she asks. "It would be hypocritical of me to sleep with him and force you to stay...celibate."

"So you _do_ want to sleep with him then?"

They're wronging him enough. She doesn't need to have sex with him. She doesn't. If she cares about him as much as she thinks she does, she shouldn't even consider taking things to that level. But if she cares about him as much as she thinks she does, how could she not want to?

"You come home with lipstick on your shirt, and suddenly you're in my bed." His fingers poke at her nightgown, pushing it up her thigh to expose more of her skin. "Why are you here?"

"The woman who leaves that bedroom door open every night knows exactly why I'm here." He moves, leaning on his elbows so he can look at her. "And maybe..."

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe coming home and finding him in my slippers did make me jealous."

She flushes at that. "We're not really married. We're nothing to each other."

He moves to sit up fully, kicking the covers away. He's only in a pair of blue boxer briefs, the kind she launders for him regularly. She's not used to seeing them on him though, hugging his hips and thighs. His erection's already pressing insistently against the fabric. "We're not nothing to each other," he says, kneeling so they're face to face. "You know this isn't nothing." He leans forward, clearly about to kiss her.

"We're not married, and I don't know your history," she manages to say. "You need to wear a condom."

He laughs. "Wow, okay. Keep talking dirty to me, wife."

She finds herself chuckling too, watching him get up and leave the room. She's almost afraid he's going to come back empty handed or not come back at all, but he's shaking a tiny packet back and forth when he does return. He sets it down on the nightstand and grins wickedly before tugging the little chain on the lamp, plunging the room into darkness, hiding his body from view. 

"Like a real married couple now," he teases.

Then he's there, the mattress creaking as he finds her, pushing her down and onto her back, her legs spreading instinctively to let him lie between them. Unlike a married couple, he doesn't just get it over with and start snoring. He hitches up her nightgown, kissing her stomach before moving lower and kissing through the damp cotton of her panties, sending shivers through her. It's better than she's imagined, sitting in the house alone wondering what it would be like.

Before too long she's allowing him to kiss her properly, feeling him hard against her as his tongue slips greedily into her mouth. Perhaps, Keiko decides, he's wanted this as long as she has. If any thoughts remain for Sakurai Sho, they disappear when Jun slides her panties down, his fingers slipping inside her to stroke teasingly. Is he still wearing his wedding ring? 

She soon finds the condom in her palm. "If you'd like to do the honors," he whispers. He guides her hand to his cock, and she bites down on her lip as she slowly slides it down his length.

By now she's mostly adjusted to being in the dark, gasping in delight when he finally enters her, watching the shadowy outline of him start to move. It's as fast and hard as she likes, as though he's seen into her mind and found her out. And who are they now, in Shin and Reiko's bed? She doubts Shin would be so rough, she doubts Reiko would want it so rough. Would Sawada Reiko lie there, letting her husband take his pleasure? Or would she instead wrap her legs around him, digging her heels into his ass to draw him in deeper?

She's almost grateful for the darkness, because if Jun could see her he'd know how badly she wants this. Regardless of the rules, regardless of the farce. Though she supposes her gasps, her cries are proof enough. His sweat and hers mingle, and she's not sure if it's "Reiko" or "Keiko" that he's moaning by her ear when he comes. His hand finds the top of her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as he kisses her sweetly enough to drive her mad.

"That was good," she admits to him, her legs like jelly as she stops clinging to him, letting them slide back to the mattress. But he doesn't move, not yet. He's still inside her, and she knows somehow that they fit too well, too perfectly for this to be an isolated incident. She strokes his cheek, lets him kiss her again. "That was really good."

"Well, thank you," he manages to get out before finally moving away. "I can sleep here. You can take my room. Nice clean sheets."

She snorts. "Done with me already?"

"Never."

She leaves anyhow, tucking him in with a giggle and a kiss to his forehead before slipping out of the room. Things are really complicated now, Keiko knows. She's just making things worse. But at the very least she now knows why the girls used to fight for him so fiercely.

\--

It's a testament to their persistence and hardworking natures that they're able to file their reports and discuss the case with no problems. Two complete professionals. Headquarters seems to think they're right on track, though they're no closer to implicating Igarashi Shinya. Jun disappears for long work days, half of those evenings Sakurai Sho joins her for a quiet dinner and a few meaningless variety shows on television, and then Jun comes home smelling like a bar and another woman's perfume. She'd be jealous, except she has a sixth sense that he's not sleeping with them. He's just keeping up the ruse and coming home to her instead.

Coming home to her. Like they're really a couple or something absurd like that.

They don't have sex every night. Sometimes he's genuinely tired from work. Sometimes he's too drunk from the bar, falling into bed and snoring before she's even gotten him out of his work clothes. It seems like he's more interested in her on the nights she has Sho over for dinner.

Sho himself is as perfect and proper as ever. Even if he knows her husband is sleeping around behind her back, he keeps it to himself. Instead he listens to her dutifully, wants to know about her boring days. Keiko finds that her life's become the best of both worlds - the nurturing and care that Sakurai Sho provides, a shoulder to cry on when "Shin" is away so many nights in a row. And then there's the physicality and raw desire from Jun. It's as though Sawada Shin is actually cheating on his wife with some slut named Kitagawa Keiko. But if Michiko-san and the neighborhood gossips were relating the tale, Sawada Shin is a hard worker and his wife's fooling around with the man next door.

It's not fair to Sho. Not at all, and the more she has him over, the more she hears him sound more interested in joining the soccer team, the more she cares for him. The more she sometimes wonders if he can see from his master bedroom to theirs, if he knows that "Shin" is sleeping around and coming home for more. When Jun's inside her she can forget for a time, but when Sho arrives with a smile and a "Good evening, Reiko-san," she feels terrible. She cares for both of these men in different ways, and it scares her. The more she has Sho stop over, the harder it's going to be to betray him. Their lives are becoming too intertwined. They need to move along already. 

That night she emerges from the bath in her towel, finds Jun on her bed in his work clothes. She stands in the doorway, frowning at him.

"You're wrinkling that."

"And you'll fix it," he says cheekily.

"We need to get into his house and plant the devices soon."

"He's joining the team," Jun tells her. "He's coming to practice. He says you encouraged him."

Keiko shrugs. "I'm very persistent." Keiko knows that Sho isn't joining the team because he likes to play. Sho's joining the team to keep an eye on Jun. There's so much Sho wants to say to her when they talk. She knows he wants to admit his suspicions. He just doesn't know how. That he's grown to care for her so quickly makes her guilt all the more painful.

"Come over here."

She obeys, watching him adjust on the bed until his head is at the edge. He directs her into place, putting her where he wants her. She stands at the edge of the bed, holding her towel as he pushes her legs apart, has her squat down a bit so she's straddling his face. His tongue finds her clit in seconds. She shuts her eyes, hands shaking on her towel. "Jun," she murmurs. Don't change the subject. We need to talk about Sho.

Instead his hands clamp around her trembling hips, holding her in place while he alternates between licking and sucking at her. It's so fucking good she can't stand it. She knows the light in the master bedroom across the way is on. Is Sho in there? Reading before bed? Is he thinking of her? All too quickly she finds herself imagining that it's Sho's face under that towel, eating her out and thanking her so kindly for the privilege. She gasps, Jun's tongue swirling mercilessly over her clit.

Which of them is it, Keiko, she asks herself. Which one of them do you really want? Sho, she thinks, clutching her towel and imagining Sho's hands on her breasts, those ridiculous, gorgeous lips of his pressed to her pulse. No, it's Jun, she thinks, imagining him fucking her on the kitchen floor, rudely interrupting when she's halfway through making his stupid bento for work. No, she thinks. It's her on her back with them both kneeling on either side of her, ready to come. It's Jun's cock in her left hand and Sho's in her right. It's both of them she wants, craves.

It's like fireworks when she comes, Jun's fingers digging so insistently into her hips and not letting her move. The towel falls and he wrenches it away from his face. She's completely exposed, bared to him, and he pushes her down onto the floor. The carpet burns against her back, and he can't be bothered to undress, merely unzipping his slacks. There's no time to force him off and say "get a condom, you pig," because he wants her so bad and she's so turned on she doesn't care. She can see where his mouth has been, she's all over his face, glistening, and he doesn't kiss her or wipe it away.

Then he's inside her, hard and urgent, wrenching her legs up off the rug and settling her ankles against his shoulders. She thinks he may split her in two, and it's so good that when she's feeling the rug burns on her back tomorrow it'll bring her back to this moment, to this feeling of floating.

This time she's not "Reiko" or "Keiko" but "mine," he says, "all mine," and there's a shock to her system when he hurriedly pulls out. He manages to catch half of it in his fist, in his fingers, but the rest finds her belly, painting her with his frantic need to possess her. She can hardly breathe, staring up at him as he eases her legs down. Jun's own face looks so surprised that she doubts he meant to say anything like "mine" at all. Maybe he can sense that she's torn between him and someone else, even if that's what Jun claims to want to push the case forward.

He hurries off to the bathroom, returns with a washcloth, rubs it over her stomach and then gently between her legs. He shakily picks her up and sets her onto the mattress, pulling the sheets over her. And then for the first time he stays in bed with her for the night.

In the morning Jun apologizes and says it's time for her to get inside Sakurai's house.

\--

Somehow Sho has been persuaded to invite Jun and Keiko to dinner. It's twenty minutes before she's due to walk next door when Jun calls and says he's not coming. "But the women in the neighborhood..."

"What, do they have cameras pointed at our house 24/7? Go over there, and don't you leave until you can confirm the view from the second floor."

And he hangs up on her, as he usually does. It's infuriating. Any couple would reschedule, but she has to go alone. If anyone's watching her when she leaves the house promptly at 7:00 and walks to his door, they've got gossip fuel for weeks. When Sho opens the door, he looks confused.

"Where's Shin-kun?" Keiko tries not to smile at the cute little apron he's wearing that's a few sizes small. It had probably been his wife's.

"He can't make it," she says in frustration. "I'm so sorry you've gone to all this trouble."

Then she smells something burning, and Sho panics. She stumbles into the house, a near mirror copy of her own interior but with more books and considerably more clutter. She hurries to the kitchen and gets an oven mitt. It's darker and crispier but it seems as though Sho's tried to replicate her rosemary chicken. He bumbles around behind her.

"Ah, I never know what I'm doing."

"We can salvage this. I'll take home whatever's burnt for my husband." That'll teach him, she thinks bitterly, but Sho still seems mortified. Well, she's definitely in the house now and not going anywhere for a while.

While they eat in the dining room, it's more awkward than it is at her home. Sho's even found a pair of mismatched candles for the table, and the room takes on a more romantic air now that it's just the two of them. Unlike dinners at her house where Sho visits under the pretext of doing a favor for Jun, Keiko can feel a change in the air. The earlier ease of their conversations, from her husband's job to the neighborhood to books they've read has vanished.

Sho backs up out of his chair awkwardly. "I bought some ice cream if you wanted dessert, Reiko-san. I'm afraid I don't know how to bake..."

She helps him carry the plates to the kitchen. She can see through to her own kitchen blinds. It's so bizarre looking from this side after so many weeks. "No, but thank you," she says, not wanting to embarrass Sho any further. Based on his cluttered, messy kitchen, she doubts he'd even be able to find an ice cream scoop. They put the extra chicken in the fridge and she finds take-out bags and plastic tubs of leftovers that should probably be thrown in the trash.

When she closes the refrigerator door, she turns to look at him. He's been watching her, if the way he quickly looks away is any indication. "I'm sorry for the disappointing meal."

"I'm not disappointed," she says firmly. Instead she steps forward, seemingly trapping him between herself and the kitchen island. He could easily step aside. He doesn't, his gaze firmly fixed on her. "Sakurai-san, do you have maid service?"

He definitely hadn't expected that question, his face confused. He even lets out a "Huh?"

"To come clean your house," she says, looking around and trying to take on the same snooty look Michiko-san is so skilled with. "Because I'm just about to start cleaning it myself."

Sho is horrified. "Reiko-san, no...oh my gosh...is it really that awful?"

She chuckles, linking her arm through his, feeling him freeze up all the more. "Give me the grand tour, Sho-san."

Together they walk through the house arm in arm, and he gradually loosens up, grows accustomed to her rather unnecessary closeness. His living room is dominated by a rather large TV, though his furniture set clashes with it. They move upstairs, and he gestures to a closed door that she knows is his bedroom. "The master bedroom." One of the other two bedrooms is completely empty save for some boxes that designate it as a lazy storage room, the second has a mattress and boxspring, no sheets, only made up for guests. And Sho never has guests.

It's a rather sad little tour, but she asks about some of the art on the walls, and he hints that he didn't pick any of it out. They pass the second bathroom. He moves away from her and flicks the lights on. It smells almost unnaturally clean, like bleach, very recently used. Of all the rooms, he's gone to the effort here of making it accommodating for his guests. Even the toilet seat is down, and he's folded the toilet paper into a neat little triangle.

"I suppose if you'll excuse me then?" Keiko asks, and Sho nods politely, heading downstairs and leaving the bathroom to her. She shuts the door and starts to look around.

It's a clear, unobstructed view into Igarashi's house, everything she and Jun need. They can mount the camera just outside the window glass, and they can put the audio bugs close by to pick up any sounds within 15 yards. Enough to cover that half of Igarashi's home entirely. She takes her phone from her purse, snaps a dozen photos of the room and what they can accomplish. Then she flushes the toilet and runs the sink, feeling awful for Sho, who has put a small bar of soap on the dish that's clearly imprinted with the name of whatever hotel he'd last visited. It's stale and has no scent.

He gets to his feet when she comes back downstairs, hands awkwardly shoved in his pockets. "I'm sorry there wasn't much to see."

"I was hoping," Keiko says, "I was hoping to pay my respects..."

Sho's eyes widen in understanding. Cruelty heaped on cruelty, but he nods and leads her to a small alcove just beyond the living room. Here she kneels down and Sho does too before the small altar. There's a picture of the dead woman there, smiling out at her. Unlike the rest of the house, this area's regularly dusted and tended to and it breaks her heart again and again.

"Ah, her name was Umeko," Sho explains, his fingers moving to the altar to linger on a chocolate bar that's been left. He smiles. "Her favorite."

Keiko shuts her eyes, brings her hands together and prays genuinely. Sho must think she's just being polite. Sho has no idea that she's begging this woman, this long dead woman with the gentle smile, to forgive her for what she plans to do. Umeko-san, I'm so sorry, Keiko prays. 

Umeko-san, I have to take him from you.

When she gets home, she tosses her phone to Jun, lets him look at the photos of Sho's bathroom. He seems to sense that she wishes to be alone, and she hears the guest bedroom door close firmly.


	3. Chapter 3

It's June and the block party on Azalea Way is ready to begin. The street's been blocked off with police assistance, and children run up and down the block chasing each other with water pistols. Igarashi-san and his wife are mingling with the crowd, shaking hands and sampling hors d'oeuvres. Keiko's spent the past week slaving away in the kitchen to perfect her chicken skewers in peanut sauce. Jun's conveniently been out late every night, resulting in four nights in a row of dinner with Sho-kun. He's been cheering her on, ensuring that her dish is perfect.

But Sho's nowhere to be seen today as Keiko stands nervously at her place in the unofficial housewives cook-off area, Jun by her side nursing a can of beer. He should be with the other men, bullshitting and complaining about the things their wives do to piss them off. Instead he's like glue, brushing his fingers to her wrists, tugging her ponytail, acting like a newlywed. There's something going on in the Sawada household, everyone's eyes seem to say, but nobody's going to say a word when Igarashi-san is out and about.

The man himself approaches the table. He's short and fat with beady eyes and thin lips. He repulses Keiko and would repulse her even if she didn't already know he was a despicable person. But she allows him to shake her hand, and Jun pounces on the opportunity, introducing himself and her and telling their neighbor what a privilege it is to work for Higashimaru. And what a privilege it'll be, Jun doesn't say, to see his ass in a jail cell for the rest of his life after profiteering on the suffering of others for decades.

Igarashi's wife picks up a skewer a bit dubiously, and Keiko politely holds out a napkin. The woman takes the tiniest of nibbles and offers Keiko a tiny smile. "Charming," she says before handing the skewer to her husband. Who then gnashes at it with his teeth, the sauce coating his mouth.

"Delicious," he says, looking at her tits before he shakes Jun's hand again and they depart.

"Hero of the neighborhood," Jun whispers in her ear. 

"Pride of the nation," she replies.

Michiko-san is the queen bee of the block party, bringing people over to the tables to try the food, organizing an egg toss for the kids whose parents bully them into participating. Michiko-san tries Keiko's chicken and says "better luck next year, okay, Reiko-san?" to her face. But she says it with that simpering smile that means Keiko shouldn't take offense.

Jun sips his beer. "I don't know how you put up with this every day," he admits.

The day continues, and prizes are awarded for best appetizer and best dessert (neither of the awards going to Keiko) as well as for loveliest garden (also not to Keiko). She's not the least bit disappointed.

"Where's Sho?" she finally asks while she and Jun watch a few neighborhood kids bounce around noisily in one of those inflatable castles. 

"At home." Jun wiggles his phone. "I texted him an hour ago, he's been there all day."

Trapped inside while the neighborhood celebrates itself. She wants to go to him, and Jun seems to be in agreement. "I'm bored," Jun says. "I'm going to sneak out."

"It's not sneaking if you tell me."

"It's sneaking if one of your gossip-loving friends sees me pulling away in the car without you in it." He pauses. "Or if I tell Sho to watch you, that I've got somewhere else to be."

Keiko sighs. There are eyes everywhere. Who knows what they'll think? Somehow Keiko will be to blame, she just knows it. "I don't like this plan."

He puts an arm around her, in plain sight, and she doesn't dare remove it. "Then tell him I'm cheating on you, and you just don't know what to do. You found messages on my phone."

"You think it's time for that?" Is Sho ready for her to come looking for answers?

"You did look at those pictures you took of his bathroom, right? You need to get in there again."

They hold hands and head for home as the sun sets. Of course the block party's only getting started. There's a DJ hired to spin tunes for the younger couples, and there's going to be some small fireworks and sparklers for the kids. Jun leaves, backing out of the carport and heads down the block, driving around the wooden barrier that blocks off traffic.

She knows that even if nobody at the block party saw it, Sakurai Sho probably did. She paces her living room for a good half an hour, waiting for complete dark. At the first sound of firecrackers, Keiko hurries out of the house and around to Sho's, banging on his door in barely contained hysterics.

Kids are running down the street trying to fling their lit sparklers at each other when Sho opens the door in a low-cut v-neck and sweatpants. "Reiko-san," he says in surprise, quickly taking in the situation. "Inside, hurry."

His door shuts, and she shakes. Half of it's acting, the rest is her nerves. They knot in her stomach, all the lies upon lies. Umeko-san's portrait on the altar, and Sho's concerned eyes. Knowing that this time Jun may actually go out and sleep with some woman to make the lie stronger, if he hasn't been doing so all this time he's been fucking her too. She's still lying to Sho. She's a liar. A fake. The worst human being.

She breaks down, collapsing in a sad little heap in his genkan, and all he can do is crouch down beside her, wrapping one of his strong, reliable arms around her while she cries. "Reiko-san, what is it? Tell me what's wrong..."

She can hear his enormous TV blaring. All his curtains are drawn, blocking out the celebration in the streets. She tries to regain her composure, knowing she's gone overboard. He gets her to her feet, helps her out of her sandals and brings her to his couch. He sits her down and begs her to wait, he'll be right back. It's one of the Lord of the Rings movies, and she watches a massive battle through bleary eyes.

He returns with a box of tissue and a glass of water. He doesn't join her on the couch. Instead he kneels on the floor before her, hands on his thighs, waiting for her to explain. So she feeds him the lies, about Shin going out so often, about the mysterious phone calls at odd hours of the night, the perfume on his clothing that she doesn't recognize.

"I must be going mad, Sakurai-san," she says, blowing her nose, knowing full well that she's never looked more unattractive in her life. Here's the real test for Sho-san, seeing her at her lowest (but this isn't her lowest, Keiko knows, her lowest is the day he learns of the mask she wears every second she's in front of him). "I must be going crazy."

Sakurai has two choices - he tells her she's crazy or he tells her she's absolutely right. Neither are appealing, and he seems to be weighing these two options. His hands are fisted in the fabric of those crappy sweatpants, his beautiful brown eyes never more serious than they are right now.

"Reiko-san," he mutters quietly, and she knows he wants to take her hand. Wants to squeeze it and tell her he's here for her. Because he's a good man, a good person, and he'd never lie to her. Not ever.

"I like Shin-kun," he says, "but I must admit to you that I don't like everything about him. And in particular..."

Sho speaks without stopping for nearly ten minutes, detailing all the phone calls Jun takes at work, the secretaries he flirts with relentlessly, the wink-wink manner he has when he asks Sho to keep her company. He apologizes with tears in his eyes for not telling her immediately, but he had no idea how.

"I can't bear to see you hurt. I can't bear to see the way he's hurting you," he says and finally his hand moves, takes one of hers. "I don't know how to help you, but let me help you."

"He's my husband," she says, dabbing at her eyes. "Perhaps if I'd done something more to keep him..."

"No," Sho says insistently, and if she wasn't in the middle of the biggest lie of her life, she'd swoon. "No, this isn't your fault at all. If you were mine I'd never let you go..."

She pulls her hand back in genuine surprise. All those dinners, all those nights forcing him to talk about her "husband." All the smiles she saves for him, the little looks and lies that are for Sho alone. He's in love with her. He's actually in love with her.

"Sho-kun," she whispers, eyes wide. He's not in love with her, Keiko has to remind herself. He's in love with the lie she's constructed.

He backs away awkwardly, bumping his shin on the table hard enough to make her wince. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that..."

He grabs the remote, turns the dvd off, lets out a frustrated little noise.

She blows her nose, stares up at him. She'd love him too, if she deserved him at all. She doesn't deserve him. But Jun's off god knows where doing god knows what, and this is her chance to shine. She gets to her feet and walks over to him. I'm sorry, Umeko-san, Keiko thinks as she wraps her arms around Sho's middle and buries her face in his chest.

Unable to do anything but wrap his arms around her, Sho does so, leaning his chin on top of her head. "What can I do to help you? Do you want me to confront him? Do you think you want a...a...divorce?"

She shakes her head at all of these things. "I want him to love me again. Like he used to. But he won't. He won't ever again."

"I could make him leave the house. I'm sure I could..."

"No," she whimpers. "No, just...Sho-kun, I need you..."

She tightens her grip on him, and if there was ever the right time for an inappropriate erection, it's now, and in her heart Keiko feels great shame. Sho tries to let her go, horrified at his body's involuntary reaction to her closeness, her need for him. "Reiko-san," he says, voice trembling. He's been alone so long, and she's turning to putty in his hands. She's terrible, she's terrible, she's terrible. How has this become their assignment? What does this have to do with getting equipment rigged up in his bathroom? Why doesn't she march right outside and punch Igarashi Shinya in his face?

He forcibly pushes her back, frustration written plainly on his face. He wants her. This is his chance, and he wants her. Rebel, Sakurai Sho, she begs him. Rebel and take what you want. Would Jun, if their roles were reversed? Would Jun take advantage of a crying, desperate woman?

Sho shakes his head. "You shouldn't have to put up with this," he grits out, crossing his arms. So stoic in his refusal. "Are you sure you don't want me to say anything to Shin?"

She lowers her head, hair falling in her face. "No. No, I just think I need someone to talk to. Until I'm strong enough to end it, confront him myself. I just need someone on my side."

The door's open, and Sho can close it if he wants. He can wash his hands of the whole Sawada marriage mess, ignore his feelings, ignore his heart. It's what Keiko almost wishes he'd do, if only so they'd have to find another way to get to Igarashi. To scrap this farce before they break Sho any further.

"Whatever you need, I'm here for you," he says uneasily, so unsure of what he might actually be agreeing to.

She nods. "I should go..."

He walks her to the door. There's a loud boom as some of the noisier fireworks are set off, and she clings to his arm. Their eyes meet, and she can see how much he's struggling within himself. What's going on in that head of his? How much of it is loyalty to a woman he's lost? How much of it is his anger at Sawada Shin and his longing for his technically untouchable wife?

She gets her shoes on and kisses his cheek before he can react, slipping out and into the darkness. Somehow Keiko isn't even surprised when Jun doesn't come home that night.

\--

The next time he's over for dinner, Sho slips her a silver key attached to a Gundam keychain. "To my house," he says gently. "If you feel the need to get out of here. I know what it might look like to the neighbors but..."

It doesn't take much acting for the tears to fall, and she clutches the key in her fist. Here's the solution, the answer to her prayers. She can get into his place and set up everything and not have to take advantage of his kindness any further. He's opening his home and his heart, and she could kiss him. Instead, she gives him an extra slice of cake and when she gives him a friendly kiss good night at the door, she aims closer to his mouth than his cheek.

When Jun gets home, he nearly jumps for joy, waving the key around. "What did you do? What the fuck did you do to him? And why haven't you done it to me?"

His humor seems grossly out of place, and she tells him the truth. That Sakurai Sho is in love with her and would do anything for her. Jun seems genuinely surprised, and his celebrating comes to a screeching halt. "So...you didn't sleep with him?"

"No!" she says angrily.

"I thought he'd sleep with you for revenge or something." Jun's bravado crumbles a bit. "I've been rubbing it in his face, you know. I've been a complete and utter bastard. Showing him pictures on my phone..."

She wants to see, and he reluctantly shows her. Black hair, brown hair, black hair, something close to red. One for every day of the week, winking naughtily at the camera and flashing a peace sign. How many have ended in a simple kiss? Maybe a handjob? How many have been something more? In one photo, there's not even a face, just a girl with her skirt up and no panties, fingering herself for Jun's pleasure. She closes the phone and holds it out for him to take back. There's no point in being angry with him.

"You don't know him at all," she says with a sigh. "He wants to defend my honor. He's old-fashioned. And you show him your conquests like you're partners in crime."

"I'm not..." he starts to protest. "Keiko, this isn't me. This isn't who I am, this is what I have to do..."

"Is it? Those girls are really part of the plan? You had to take it this far?"

It's no longer simple jealousy. She's disappointed in him, in how he's let this stupid assignment twist him as it's twisted her. Playing everyone false, they've lost themselves. Both of them.

"Stay out tomorrow night, have your fun," she tells him. "I'll do it tomorrow, plant the equipment, and we can start monitoring feeds on Igarashi."

He moves closer, and he seems genuinely ashamed of himself. "Keiko..."

"I'm serious. You'll need to be in every night. We'll have to monitor Igarashi's house in shifts, and you know it. I think your affair needs to come to a close for now." He's even closer, his eyes pained. He wants a sympathy fuck. "Jun, I'm not going to..."

He laughs, looking down at his feet. "I'm proud of you, for what it's worth. Putting up with this, all of this. With me. Doing everything about Sakurai yourself. I guess I've been angry that you've found a way when everything I did didn't work. I've done wrong by you, and I'm sorry. The reason we're cracking this case is you. One hundred percent you, and our report's going to say that. I'm so sorry."

They'll sleep in separate beds tonight, but she does allow him to lean down and kiss her. For all that he's just praised her professionally, he's always been more interested in her personally. She realizes that she's missed the taste of him, the feeling of his long, lean body pressed against hers. She savors him, lets her tongue explore his mouth, takes from him what he's taken from her and finally pushes him back. She doubts that she'll ever stop wanting Matsumoto Jun, not with the way he looks at her sometimes. But right now...right now it's Jun she wants but Sho she needs.

She heads upstairs for a bath, but not before jokingly leaving a box of tissue on Jun's pillow. His laugh when he finds it echoes through the quiet house, and she knows they're seeing eye to eye again.

\--

So even though her professional and personal relationship with Jun seems to be repaired for now, Shin and Reiko's problems remain. Jun makes a point of asking Sho to lie to her, say he's going to a meeting overnight in Tokyo. Which Sho reports to her via text at midday, asking her what she wants him to do. She could go over now, get things set up and leave.

"Can I stay over?" she sends back, deciding not to do any breaking and entering in the middle of the hot summer day. "I don't want to be alone in the house tonight."

It takes a good half hour before Sho replies back with "whatever you need, Reiko." No Reiko-san. Just Reiko. Sawada Shin is about to push Sho over the edge. Maybe Sawada Reiko will push him first.

She packs an overnight bag, lining the bottom with all the equipment she'll need. She and Jun have practiced the installation in their own bathroom several times, having planned for their first opportunity in Sho's house. She can do it all in five minutes, six tops. He won't notice it if she sets things up right. Much of it will be outside, stuck against the side of the window frame, the camera small enough to maybe be mistaken for a spider. And the audio patches aren't much larger. If Igarashi knows to look, he'd find them, but how would he know?

Sakurai arrives home from work around 7:00 PM, clad in the employee soccer team jersey. Now that Sho's on the team, Jun's been skipping practice. Keiko watches him enter the house, cleats flung over his shoulder. He's filthy. He'll need a shower first. So she decides to be rude and tosses her bag over her shoulder and waits for the street to be as clear as it can be before she sneaks over, ringing his doorbell. She's exposed for an agonizingly long minute, a minute where anyone can see her ready to enter Sakurai Sho's house with an overnight bag, the Sawada carport completely empty.

When he pushes the door open, there's still some shampoo in his hair, and his towel's barely steady where he's tied it around his waist. Jun is broad - he boxes and swims and runs. Sho appears to lift weights, do muscle training, if the definition in his arms and abs are anything to go on. She has no complaints about either of them. He hurries her inside, clutching at his towel.

"Reiko-san, forgive me. I'll be back in a few minutes. Please, make yourself comfortable." With that he hurries up the stairs, heads back to the shower. She chuckles to herself. This seems to be the least mean thing she's done to him.

When he returns, he hasn't bothered to comb his hair. Little drops of water are falling, leaving dark splashes on his tight gray v-neck. Keiko wants to thank the inventor of the v-neck somehow, but she gathers her composure. Whatever happens between her and Sho on this oh so contrived evening matters little. Installing the equipment is the real priority.

Keiko cooks and Sho cleans up, and Sawada Shin isn't mentioned once. Instead they sit together on the couch, a one cushion barrier between them and snack on some popcorn. After a long work day and soccer practice, Sho becomes drowsy quickly, especially when the movie they choose is black and white, older than both of them added together. When he falls asleep, she leaves him, TV sending flickers of light across the living room when she switches out the light. She heads upstairs as quietly as she can, pulling her bag from the spare room (he'd bought brand new sheets for that bed recently, probably around the same time he decided to give her a key).

When she gets to the bathroom and sets down the bag, she takes a deep breath and plans everything out. There are small hand tools in the bag, a quiet drill to anchor the little camera in place. She opens the window glass, sees that the lights are off by Igarashi's. A good sign, though she only has the bathroom light to work with. Everything goes according to plan. Camera installed and rolling, sending a signal to a laptop in the third unused bedroom of her house, recording. The audio goes on, and she tests it "one, two, test one, two." When she gets home in the morning, she'll play it back to ensure that it's recording properly, enough to pick up any noise in Igarashi's place.

She closes the window, puts everything back, and she's just brushing her teeth when there's a knock at the door. "Reiko-san?"

She glances around, sees that nothing's really out of place, and she opens the door, toothbrush in hand.

"I'm so sorry to interrupt," Sho says, eyes tired but not for long as he suddenly takes in her simple t-shirt and boy shorts she's chosen for pajamas. From the Kitagawa Keiko collection, not Sawada Reiko's. He looks away. "I'm sorry..."

"What's wrong?" she says, hand over her mouth to keep from spitting toothpaste on him.

"Nothing," he blurts out. "Nothing's wrong, I...I just wanted to make sure you had everything you needed. And um, since you have a key of your own, please leave whenever you wish tomorrow. Don't wait for me if you need to get home."

She nods and he pulls the door closed.

\--

It's the middle of the night, and she's hot. So hot. She kicks the covers off, sighing. She moves to the A/C unit in the corner of the room. Nothing. No hum, no air, nothing. 

Her hair's plastered uncomfortably to the back of her neck, and she opens the door, discovering that it's not the unit in the room that's out. It's the power entirely. The hall's stifling, and the light switch doesn't work either. She moves to the hall window, cracks the blinds. The whole neighborhood is dark. Of course, it could be because everyone's asleep, but she doubts that's the case. The street lights are out too. The computers back at the house are not recording anything from Igarashi's, and she grumbles to herself.

She hears movement, and then Sho's door is opening. "Is the power out?" he asks.

"Seems like it."

He groans, leans against the wall. "You've gotta be kidding me, I have to work tomorrow."

"Maybe it's cooler downstairs. Let's go down there until it comes back on. Open a few windows."

He moans and complains like a little boy, but she grabs the pillows and a light blanket from the guest room, and he follows her down the stairs with pillows of his own. They stumble around in the dark, finding the living room floor. It's not much cooler down here. They dump the couch cushions, lay out the blankets over them. Sho fumbles his way to the glass, pushing open a few of the windows. There's not much of a breeze, but it's something. 

She's arranged everything as best she can without any light, and she hears him coming close again. "Reiko-san, where are you? I don't want to step on you."

"I'm right here," she says, holding out a hand, moving it side to side slowly. But Sho's always been a little clumsy. He finds the coffee table instead of the little pillow and blanket fort first, and he stumbles. He lands next to her with a noisy "oof," immediately apologizing. 

"Reiko-san," he complains. "I stubbed my toe. I have to work tomorrow!"

"Yes, I know, Sho-kun."

He shifts around, turning onto his back a bit roughly, enough to land one of his elbows in her side. "Ah, I'm so sorry."

"Stop moving," she chides him, moving to her side and pressing her hand to his chest. "Stay still."

And then his hand moves to keep hers in place there. She's hot and sweaty and uncomfortable. There's no comforting hum of the air conditioning, nothing but Sho's breath and hers in the dark, the odd assortment of blankets and pillows beneath them.

Keiko knows she'd hear a pin drop. Just seconds earlier he was irritable and whiny, but now it seems Sho has realized that he's lying right next to her. On the floor of course, but they're closer than they ought to be if he respects her as a married woman, hands off. She doesn't move, and neither does he for a few agonizing moments. She thinks of Jun, off wherever (and probably in a place with power and air conditioning). She thinks of Sho, his messy hair and calming smile. She wants this and knows she shouldn't, not if she has an ounce of respect for Sho. But then again, what does Sho want?

She could blurt out everything, come clean, let him hate her now rather than later. She can't. She's too much of a coward, too selfish, too willing to give in to her desires.

"Reiko-san," he says. "If I don't go back to my room, I might do something I'll regret. That we'll both regret."

"Like what?" she challenges him, feeling too burdened with clothes, with the heavy, hot air in the room.

"Reiko-san, you're married..." She laughs bitterly. "No, seriously, you are..."

I'm not, she wants to scream. I'm not I'm not I'm not.

"Get up then," she says. "Get up and leave."

When he doesn't, she waits an agonizingly long ten seconds or so before moving, climbing on top of him, a leg on either side of him, leaning down. "Reiko..."

But this time he doesn't tell her to stop. She sits there, hair falling down in her face as she hovers over his body, waiting for him. He's in a t-shirt and shorts, and she wants them gone. But patience is needed. For Sho, it's clearly been a very long time. And you know exactly why, she chides herself, even as Sho's hands move, one resting on each of her thighs. His fingers are just at the edge of her shorts.

They slide up, up her shorts to her t-shirt, tickling a bit as they move up her side, along her ribs. Eventually his hands find her face, cupping her cheeks. His fingers are a little sweaty, but then again, so is her face. She leans forward, he leans up, and it's not like anything with Jun. Or like with anyone else. His lips are so soft, and then he's kissing her, and that's all they do for several moments. He kisses her, stops. Breathes in, exhales. Then he moves again, kisses a little longer, stops. Breathes in, exhales.

They move in tandem, Sho sitting up and arranging it so she's facing him, straddling his lap. Together they lift up her t-shirt, take it off and then his mouth's on her, from her collarbone on down. She sighs when his head dips low, feeling the tickle of his hair against her bare skin as his lips close around one of her nipples. He's going so slowly, tasting her, worshiping her body with his mouth and his tongue. She gets her index finger under his chin, lifts his face and kisses him again before pulling up his own shirt, taking it off him.

She matches his earlier movements with her own mouth, hearing him groan as she kisses his muscled shoulders, his neck. She bites his collarbone, and he jumps beneath her. It only makes their bodies come into closer contact, and he's unbelievably hard, pressing against her through his shorts. She doesn't have a condom (and given her story, given her situation, she definitely shouldn't anyhow). She knows he probably doesn't have one either, and she can't risk him getting up and getting lost trying to find one.

She moves a bit, reaches between them, undoing the small button that keeps the shorts closed. All too easily she pulls his erection into her palm, and his cry is lost against her shoulder. "Reiko," he murmurs, and she's surprised he hasn't come already given his circumstances, his loneliness.

Slowly she eases his cock up and down, moving so he can kiss her. His lips tremble as she works him, and his hand finds the back of her head, fingers twisting in her hair, not seeming to mind her sweaty scalp. She remembers the fantasy she had that one night with Jun, where she lost herself completely in the idea of having them both. A selfish, foolish fantasy, and she's aching for him to be inside her, filling her, stretching her with his cock. Instead she settles for the weight of it in her hand, the way it's already growing slicker. She lightly squeezes every time her small hand finds its way to the root of him.

He's going to come and make a mess. She wants to be bad. She wants to swallow him whole and leave him clean. Keiko would, Reiko wouldn't. She doesn't deserve him. She deserves the lie, she deserves the hollowness of her fantasy. The thought of him deep inside and Jun ready to follow. She's so wet it's uncomfortable, but she can't stop jerking Sho off. She wants him. She wants Jun. Her heart's split in half, imagining one of them on either side, fighting for her. Sho interrupts her thoughts, his breathing becoming frantic, his tongue sloppy as it tries to slip back into the heat of her mouth.

Keiko fumbles for her shirt where she's left it beside her, hurries to get it in place. The abrupt change in friction has him gasping, and she can feel an ache in her own belly as his come spurts into the fabric, marking it as she strokes him through it. She can feel the shirt grow damp.

They sit there in the dark, Sho's breathing erratic for a few moments longer while she can only clutch the shirt in her hand. They jump when they hear the sudden buzz. The air conditioning and power have returned, and here they are on his living room floor.

He tries to kiss her again, but she moves away, gets off him. The first thing she does is go to the kitchen, putting the shirt in the trash. Her panties are clinging against her, and she wants them gone. But she can't. He's managed to put a light on, his eyes blinking as he adjusts, sees her walking back in topless. In the dim glow, his hair mussed, watching her, she knows she can never undo what they've done. Politely, he holds up his own t-shirt. "Please," he says, holding it out to her, and she slips it on.

The cameras and audio are rolling again.

"Can I do anything for you?" he asks sheepishly, scratching at his sweaty mop of hair.

She shakes her head. "You have to work tomorrow."

\--

Sho's still in bed, air conditioning on high, when Keiko packs up her bag and her key and does a walk of shame to the house next door. Nobody's awake yet, and the neighborhood is still. The Toyota's in the driveway.

Jun.

She unlocks the door and steps back into the house. She's still wearing Sho's t-shirt, can smell his sweat on it. It's a bit early for breakfast, but Jun's in the kitchen, frying eggs and smoking. He never smokes in the house. She shuffles into the kitchen, stands by the refrigerator and watches him cook. It seems so effortless, watching him. Everything he does seems natural, even though she knows almost every second of everything he does has been rehearsed to excess at some point in time. The person he presents - the mask he wears, including the Matsumoto Jun, unfeeling jerk one. That one's definitely a lie. Carefully rehearsed.

He sighs, digging around in the cupboard for two plates. "Welcome home."

"Hi."

There's tension in him, from his neck and all the way down his back. She can see the veins in his hands as he scrapes the eggs (perfectly cooked) onto the plates. "Audio and video are rolling. As soon as the power came back on, I've been listening." He rolls his head side to side, cracks his neck a bit. "Perfectly placed, well done. We are good to go."

He turns on the sink to put out his cigarette and takes the plates to the dining room table. They eat in silence. He's so fiercely jealous that it's radiating off him in waves. And she can tell he's mad at himself for being jealous. For not letting it go. He knows that so much of this was his idea, his genius plan. Pushing her right into Sakurai's arms, pushing Sakurai's cock into her hand in the middle of the night. His anger pulses through her, electrifies her. It shouldn't, but it still does.

When they're done eating, he gets up awkwardly, holds out his hand. Giving her a chance to say no, thank you. Instead she remembers Sho's mouth, his gasps, her willfully ignored need, so she can't help but take Jun's hand. He brings her to the room he uses, pushes her onto the bed and leaves her there so he can pull a condom from the drawer. He orders her onto her hands and knees, moves her around so her face is all but mashed against the mattress, her ass in the air. 

He leaves Sakurai's shirt alone but tugs her shorts and panties down, yanks them down her legs even as it nearly topples her over. She nearly comes when he drags his tongue from the base of her spine to the middle of her back. Her fingers twist in the bedsheets and she buries a scream of pleasure in the mattress when he enters her from behind without warning, bringing her body back against his hard cock. He stays there, fully inside her, doesn't move. The angle's just right, just so perfect. But still he doesn't move.

She wants to beg him, wants to beg him so she can forget, get lost a while in how good it feels. "Did he make you come? Did you let him?"

Her answer's given to the mattress. No. No, not yet. But soon. Soon I'll let him. Because you told me to.

He slides back, slowly taking himself away. Depriving her. She can only push back, needing him inside her. And when he does come back, filling her up, it's even better. Combined with the whirlwind night she's had, it's all her body seems to need. So simple a feeling, and she's coming, her body out of her control as she spasms, clenching around him enough to make him groan. It's so good, and she's unworthy of it. He fucks her because there's no other word for what it is, his fingers digging into her hips as he seems to forget the rules of the game they're playing. That what they have is different, that it doesn't matter because when the case is over they're over. We're not married. We're not anything. Jun doesn't seem to want to realize that.

Sakurai Sho's in love with her. He's all but admitted it. But what is it Jun feels for her? Not Sawada Shin. Not Matsumoto Jun, I'm just doing my job, with pictures of soft, pink twenty-year-old pussy on his phone. The Matsumoto Jun she only seems to meet when he's inside her, seeing how their bodies fit together. The Jun who can't admit out loud that it's gone too far, and he wants her to himself.

He pulls out and goes away without a word after he comes, leaving her fucked and used on the bed he sleeps in. About twenty minutes later she hears the front door open and close. She pulls the blankets over her head. The dishes need washing. The carpets need vacuuming. The garbage needs sorting. Instead Keiko sleeps.


	4. Chapter 4

The dissolving Sawada marriage is the talk of the neighborhood. Several times the whispers disappear back into the mouths of Michiko-san and her clones as Keiko goes for a run or hauls out the trash. They nod and smile as though they're only discussing the weather, and she wonders if she could find one truthful person in the entire neighborhood. Just one person who's exactly as they appear to be.

That person is Sakurai Sho, Keiko reminds herself.

With the recordings and the long shifts of listening in on Igarashi's house, Keiko's had no time for Sho. Jun comes home in time for dinner, as though his spouse has discovered his misdeeds and given him an ultimatum and a curfew. Maybe that's what Sho thinks when she never uses the key he made especially for her. The key with all the feelings he can't deny, handed over with such tenderness that Keiko buries the damn thing in a zippered compartment of her purse. Or maybe Sho remembers the night they spent together and thinks she regrets it.

Jun reports that Sho's still giving him dirty looks at work when he thinks Jun isn't looking. Despite how she's left him hanging, Sho is steadfast in his defense of her.

She and Jun spend hours in that third bedroom, headphones on and eyes glued to the department-issued screens. In the week and a half they record him, Igarashi is home three nights. He visits his study on two of those nights. On the first he picks up the phone and calls his mother. On the second he calls an associate, a definite collaborator in his schemes.

But one phone call isn't enough, even if they've got audio clearly noting a deal on piping due to ship out to Fukushima in a month's time. It's the names they need, as many of Igarashi's criminal buddies as they can pin down. More details about who they're ripping off, where, and when. The investigation can only proceed when they have "more than enough." Jun rolls his eyes with every report they send in, chuckling that they'll have to catch Igarashi announcing his plans via sky writing before headquarters will move. He's clearly in the wrong, clearly engaging in criminal activity, and how much more money is the squad going to dump into their cover mission and living costs? 

Another week passes. Jun misses work once, twice. Keiko has to call in with word that he's quite ill and dreadfully contagious and will be doing work from home. And Jun actually does, propping open the damn laptop and typing up reports while he's got headphones on, listening to Igarashi's wife sweet talking someone on the phone in her bedroom.

Sho never calls. Keiko can't help but let the tears fall as she sees him leave in the mornings. His shirts need ironing, his shoes could use a good shine. He's always lost, always in a daze. As though he knows he came close to something he thought he'd never have again and he completely fucked it up.

They've got more phone calls recorded, evidence to suggest Igarashi's wife is bringing in foreign interests, and at least two members of the Diet who turn a blind eye to Higashimaru. All obtained illegally, none of it admissible in court. They'll have to try other angles, but now they'll know where to look. Who to add to the spider web of Japanese businessmen and women who prefer to add to their bank accounts than to help their fellow man.

It comes as a shock when their supervising officer visits in person for the first time, ringing their doorbell at 3 AM. "We're clearing you out by this time tomorrow night. You've done superior work." He follows it up with a "we'll take it from here, kids" attitude. Let the older detectives and squad leaders get their names in the press for this. Thanks for interrupting your lives for months. You'll be back investigating burglaries and other petty crimes soon enough. Put this behind you.

"Sawada Shin's father is very ill and has taken a turn for the worse. You're heading to his home in the countryside to be with him, take over the family business."

There's no time for a better lie or even a good one, and Jun nearly punches a hole through the wall at how quickly they're being dismissed. "They let us sit here with our thumbs up our asses for weeks, but as soon as they get x-y-z it's all over. As soon as they know they can run with it and get commendations for their investigative prowess." He laughs bitterly. "And since when am I from the fucking countryside?" 

All the hard work they did - Keiko building a life in the neighborhood, Jun actually working in that boring office job, week after week. And at this time tomorrow they're going home.

Keiko to her apartment, Jun to his. And Sho. What about Sakurai Sho?

They spend the morning and afternoon packing up the life they worked so hard to create. How easy it is to deconstruct it, to pack up the books, the pots and pans. Another undercover team may use them somewhere else someday. The only thing headquarters dares to waste is their employees' time.

She and Jun are sitting together on the couch, exhausted from packing. They haven't been outside in over 24 hours. Who will tell the neighbors what happened? Why does she even care? They'll probably just believe they guessed right: divorce.

"We need to get the devices out of Sho's bathroom," Jun finally says, the one thing that's been on their minds all day and they haven't dared to voice.

She moves to her purse, unzips it and pulls out the key. "I need to give this back anyhow..."

"And what," Jun replies, getting to his feet and looking at her sadly. "You go, here's your key, thanks buddy. Now can I use your bathroom? Ridiculous."

Keiko can name just as many ridiculous things she's done in the name of this damn case. So many things she's done and can't take back. "Then what would you suggest?"

He takes the key from her. "Get him out of the house. I'll go in, clean up, get out. And when you bring him home, he'll be none the wiser."

As easy as that? And tomorrow they drive away and never see him again? They let him find out how they played him for a fool when Igarashi gets arrested weeks, maybe months from now? She shuts her eyes. "No..."

"Keiko, you have to. One last thing. Just do this one last thing." 

He's going to open the door and he's going to look at her. He's going to want answers. All these weeks she's led him astray, the both of them have. There's no way she can go over to his house after everything and just ask him to walk with her and say nothing at all so Jun can be sneaky. Sho deserves better. Sho deserves the truth. She owes him that much. 

It's better he hates her now when he can do something about it, say it to her face, than to hate her when he's powerless and alone.

"Keiko, listen to me..."

She shoves Jun away angrily. "I'm going to tell him."

Jun sighs. "Tell him what? You can't make him an accessory to this. He can't know! What if he goes to Igarashi? What if this fucks everything up?"

"I know him. I know the person he is. He knows good and he knows bad. So he can at least know why we did what we did. He won't interfere in the case," she says, crossing her arms. 

She sees a small degree of understanding in Jun's eyes, but he shakes his head. "Don't do this just to punish yourself. You want him to hate you. You want him to actually hate you."

She says nothing.

"You were doing your job, we both were. And it's clear we got in over our heads, but just let him go. Let him go, leave him alone. Isn't it better for him to just move on?"

Keiko can only leave Jun by himself in the middle of the packed up house, alone to use Sho's key and take back the equipment.

\--

Because Sho is Sho, when she comes to the door and asks him to walk with her, he only makes her wait a moment so he can grab his keys and close the door behind him.

It's dusk, and he lets her stay quiet. They meander down the street, onto another, past well-kept flower beds and cookie-cutter houses. There's a playground three blocks away, where in her second week in the neighborhood Michiko-san told her would be a great place to have a picnic or take a future Sawada little one. Well, there will be no picnics. And no Sawada little ones.

There's a handful of kids in the grass away from the playground equipment, bikes in a heap, hoping to catch fireflies. For now they've parked themselves in the grass with jars and cans stolen from their houses, contents dumped into the playground sandbox. Not so perfect a playground.

They pay Sho and Keiko no mind, two boring adults who move to the swing set and sit down. To the children, their singular focus is the evening of glowing insects, not them. If they know who Sho and Keiko even are, if they know that they're not married, they don't seem to care. It's only the adults that care about these things.

She pushes back in the swing, clinging tightly to the metal links as she lets her shoes drag against the little wood chips that line the ground underneath. He doesn't move, just sits and waits for her to speak. 

"I have a lot to say. A lot that won't make sense. A lot that'll piss you off." She licks her lips, tries again. "You'll want to interrupt or you'll want me to stop. I only ask that you hear me out, hear all of it. I'll never ask you for anything again."

"Reiko," he interrupts, moving his hand to touch hers, and she moves, away from the comfort his touch might bring.

"The first thing I should probably tell you is that Reiko isn't my name."

One of the kids declares that he saw the first firefly. The others protest, call him a liar. Their debate rages on. 

Keiko holds tight to the swing, unable to look at him. She talks. She talks and the sun slips away, she talks and the street lights come on. The first firefly does appear. So does the second, a third. The kids screech in their excitement. Keiko talks and Sho listens. She tells him everything, from the day she got her assignment til the moment she walked up to Sho's door and asked him to walk with her tonight.

The words pour out, like air rushing out of a popped balloon. She has so much to say and not one bit of it is nice or fair. It's all "the job we were assigned" and "the choices we made to carry out that job" and when she's at her lowest, when she thinks he's only still here listening so he doesn't run off to slash the tires on their car or warn Igarashi of their investigation, she tells him that she's sorry.

She's sorry for lying, sorry for letting him care about the person she constructed. Sorry for how Jun behaved and for the nights she used Sho's trust in her to her own advantage. She's sorry that when tomorrow comes she'll be gone and Sho will be here to live with the things that she and Jun have done.

But she's not sorry, she says when her voice is starting to waver, when her strength is finally sapped completely, for growing to care about him. She's not sorry for the nights when they talked and the nights when they didn't, when he was simply there, filling a void. "I can't apologize for how things developed. Not everything was a lie," she admits. "But that doesn't matter. If one percent was real, it doesn't erase the ninety-nine percent that wasn't. All I can do is apologize, but Sho-san, I don't expect your forgiveness. I don't deserve it."

It's then that he stands up. That he listened this long, endured this much, says much about the person he is. She looks up, and it's so dark that she can't see his face. How many stupid, pointless nights did she dream about being with him? About living in a world where she and Sakurai Sho could be a couple. Or the even more pointless dreams of not having to choose him over Jun, of a fantasy land where they would both worship her. Where they were a puzzle with only three pieces and somehow she thought they would fit together perfectly.

She thinks he ought to slap her. Or maybe he'll say he understands and someday he might accept her apologies. Or maybe he'll kiss the breath out of her, putting his pure feelings of love over everything she's just confessed. She wants a reaction. Jun had seen right through her - she wants Sho to hate her, to tell her to her face that he does. That he always will. Only then can she live with the things that she's done.

No slaps, no acknowledgments, no kisses. Sakurai Sho turns his back on her and walks out of the playground without a word.

\--

She's the lowest-ranking member of a task force investigating a double homicide. So instead of getting out there, following leads or participating in suspect inquiries, she's often alone in the squad room doing paperwork. Running to get coffee when a senior detective snaps his fingers at her like she's his personal servant. She orders dinner when they're in late. She tacks up photos on the board before meetings. She's background noise.

It's been four months, and Jun finds her in the records room. He was asked to continue on with the Higashimaru and Igarashi case. Keiko was not. Even still he's doing the shit work too, serving as the office bitch for the investigation. She can see how much it angers him, how he's been shifted aside so his senpai can move up the ladder. So they can step on him, shit on him. Erase the contributions he and Keiko made, the contributions that have gotten them this far in the investigation in the first place.

"We have enough," Jun tells her. "We're going to invite him for voluntary questioning tomorrow." And by "we" Jun means everybody but him. Since of course Igarashi will recognize him and call foul. And he'd be within his rights to do so.

It's good to see Jun. With their cases pulling them in different directions, with their fucked up schedules they've met three times in these four months. Once for dinner and a quickie in the backseat of Jun's car. The other two times without bothering with dinner.

Each time she asked "Have you heard anything about Sho?" 

Each time he said "No" and slept with her anyway. 

He doesn't care where her loyalties still lie. Their time together and the way the department's treated them since has made him realize that he might want a different kind of life someday. She thinks he might even love her, if he's willing to make the time for it.

They go for coffee, to the same place they met up that first time. When she thought of him as nothing but a swaggering joke, just another one of the boys on the squad married to the job and only interested in a fling here and there. When he must have thought of her as a cold bitch who'd never move up because her daddy's not a cop and she won't fuck her way to a detective's shield.

This time they don't end up at a hotel, in his car, in the dimly lit stairwell of his apartment building. He brushes his lips against the palm of her hand and tells her he misses her. She asks him "have you heard anything about Sho?" and he says "when Igarashi goes down, I'll find out for you."

\--

In the end fourteen people are arrested. None of them are Igarashi Shinya, who has seemingly fled to South America with the help of his wife's near and dear friends. He's probably the king of something there too, sampling the local housewives' dishes with a gleam in his eye. Higashimaru collapses, and Keiko feels regret for the hundreds who lose their jobs when the company is sold to a foreign investor. The hundreds who didn't know what their bosses were up to. She supposes that many houses on Azalea Way are just as empty as the Sawada house became six months ago when she and Jun left. She even finds herself hoping that Michiko-san is alright, that her husband Teruo survived the cuts. After all, they have children to raise, put through school. 

To Keiko's surprise, Sho finds them first. Or more like he finds Jun. Keiko had, after all, given him their real names.

He wasn't let go from Higashimaru but chose to leave and accept a new position in Tokyo. He left his far too big Higashimaru house, lives in a Toshima high-rise. He meets Jun in a cafe and tells him he's been following the case ever since the "Sawada family" left the neighborhood.

"It's been six months," Jun allegedly tells him. "She still loves you, you know."

Sho allegedly seems taken aback. 

Jun doesn't feel inclined to relate any further details of the conversation, though she suspects it revolved around her. What he does tell her is what Sho said when he departed: "tell her I need more time."

\--

A year after Sawada Shin and Sawada Reiko vanish from public record, Jun's only half-joking when he asks Keiko to move in with him. They've been dating on and off as work allows for several months. "I miss your shitty eggs," he whispers sometimes when the sun's coming up and he's pressed up against her back.

He still meets with Sho. They've somehow, despite everything, become drinking buddies. Sakurai Sho's not much for friendship with adulterers but cops are fine. 

"I know you still can't choose," Jun admits.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"The way you look at me, and the way you always looked at him. It's the same. It's always been the same."

But it wasn't the same, Keiko thinks. There was Jun. And there was Sho. But it wasn't the same. Was it?

Jun's fingers trace her spine. "Back then, I wanted you to choose. And maybe he did too, in his own goody two-shoes way." He chuckles. "Maybe we shouldn't press the issue. Maybe we should both just give it up."

Alarm bells are ringing in her head. Give it up? Give _her_ up? But he kisses her shoulder reassuringly. 

"Forgive yourself, Keiko." His voice grows quieter. "I think we can figure it out in the end."

\--

It's been a long day, and Jun's apartment is two stops closer than her own. Her place is mostly an empty refrigerator and a single bed with pink, girly sheets now anyway. So it's nothing out of the ordinary for her to get off at his stop, walk past his convenience stores, his bakeries, his bookstores. His building doesn't have an elevator, and he's on the fifth of six floors.

She's got her heels in her hand and a strong need for a stiff drink when she jams the key he gave her with the Doraemon keychain into the lock and twists.

What she doesn't expect when she pulls the door open is

"Sho," she says, her heels slipping from her fingers to thunk on the hallway floor.

"Get in here already," she hears Jun calling noisily from inside. "You're late."

Sho looks healthier. Moving out of that house has done him a world of good. His eyes are still tired but probably from work and not from an empty bed in an empty house. He's still got a penchant for v-neck t-shirts, and Keiko wonders if she's actually tumbled down Jun's stairs and bumped her head. Surely this isn't real. Surely he isn't here.

"Keiko," he says, trying out her name. Perhaps Jun's trained him.

And she must make the most ridiculous face when he says her name because she hears his laughter, his honest and true laughter for the first time in over a year. She's been crying since she opened the door, and he picks up her shoes, arranges them neatly in Jun's genkan.

It's a nabe dinner in Jun's living room. A more modest size than the living room of the Sawadas, but they're once again gathered around the table. Jun to her left serving dinner, Sho to her right eating it. Keiko in the middle with no appetite to speak of until Jun forces a bowl into her hands.

And just like that Sho's asking her about work, knowing things he shouldn't know about her that Jun must have told him. Her answers are short, quick, lacking in coherency because what the fuck is this? What the fuck is this dinner like everything's okay?

It's like they both sense her discomfort at the same time. The two men she wants, the two men she needs - Jun's passion and Sho's kindness, Jun's bossiness and Sho's encouragement. Two halves of a whole.

They settle there when they're full, Jun actually making the effort of cleaning everything up so she and Sho are alone. He surprises her by scooting to her side, holding his arm up expectantly. She shuts her eyes and curls up at his side, his arm coming around her shoulders, his hand moving up and down to rub her arm as she cries in happiness.

"It's okay," he says against her hair. "It's okay."

Has he forgiven her? It seems that he has. Will he forget? She hopes he never does.

Jun finds them like that maybe an hour later (perhaps he's been off convincing himself that it's alright), and it seems that he and Sho meet eyes. With a barely noticeable nod, Sho takes Jun's cue. Sho moves, holds out a hand. She suspects that every second of this night has been choreographed. Jun the instructor, Sho the student. 

Maybe we should both just give it up, Jun had said to her. They've given up on the idea that she has to choose.

Even if her long day and dinner have left her tired, it all changes when the three of them enter the bedroom, and Jun turns down the bed. And then Sho's there, in her space in a way he'd never have been with Sawada Reiko. His kiss has so much behind it that it leaves her shaking, and he doesn't let go, his hand settling on the back of her neck.

Jun comes up behind her, and she feels how hard he is already, pressed up against her ass. His hands come up, cup her breasts, squeeze. Sho's mouth doesn't stop, his tongue teasing at her lips until she easily lets him inside. Today she wore a smart little business pantsuit. Too much fabric is still in the way - her blouse, her slacks, her belt.

Sho backs off, and Jun turns her around. Then she's feeling his kiss, and she doesn't compare. She loves Sho's, she loves Jun's, and they can coexist so easily. While Jun's greedily tasting her, his fingers go to her belt buckle, popping it open. Sho takes over, reaching around her to pull it away and toss it on the floor. Next Jun untucks her blouse, starts on her buttons while she hears Sho unzip his jeans.

Is this really happening?

Jun makes fast work of it, and her blouse hits the ground. She shivers impulsively when Jun grabs her by the hips and twists her around again. And then it's Sho's mouth at her shoulder, his tongue sliding into the dip of her collarbone. She arches up against his fingers when he reaches for the button of her slacks, undoes it, slides her zipper down. Meanwhile Jun's fingers are in her hair, sliding the elastic out and letting her hair loose. It's grown out, touches her bare shoulder blades now.

Sho's in his boxers and silly enough his socks. When he pulls her slacks down, he kneels as he does it, like he's bowing down to await further instruction. It prompts her to step out of the pants, for Jun to turn her back around so she can discover that he's down to his boxer briefs. Back and forth, back and forth. Equal opportunity. She wants them to fill her up, use her up, take it all because she'll give it freely.

Jun chuckles when Sho's attacking the clasp of her bra with awkward fingers. "Knew I should have taken this part," he jokes, and she hears Sho's muttered complaint behind her back.

She finds herself reaching for Jun's face, hands on his cheeks, searching his eyes. Is this really okay? Are we going to be okay?

Yes, of course, is the cocky reply, the quick grin that spreads across his face. This is what you want. This is who you are. And this is what you deserve.

Once Sho's finished with her bra, it joins the growing pile of clothing on Jun's floor. Thankfully it includes Sho's socks. Sho's back to his knees then kissing the backs of her thighs, licking at her skin enough to send her jumping from the tickling feeling. But she can't jump far because Jun's kissing her again, taking a nipple between his thumb and forefinger and squeezing it the way she likes. 

Then Sho's fingers are at the top of her panties, pulling them down. She's never been this ready, this wanting in her life. Jun breaks away from her lips, kisses her temple. "I have whatever you need us to use in the drawer. Just say the word, and we're safer than a bank vault."

She shakes her head. She's on the pill. She's only been with Jun in over a year, and Sho's too loyal for random flings (and she doesn't doubt that Jun's made sure of it). "Whatever you want then," Jun says. He looks past her shoulder, seemingly conferring privately with his partner in crime.

Jun smiles and lets go of her. He steps back and Sho's pulling on her hand, pulling her to the bed. There's none of the hesitation, none of the taboos that defined that one and only night together. The night where she would have done anything to have him inside her and still said no.

He gets onto Jun's bed, lies back against the pillows. He strokes himself a few times, seeming a bit proud of what he's about to give her. She turns to look back and Jun's stepping out of his own underwear, painfully hard himself. He gives her a nod.

She's ready for them both, her hair falling forward to brush the tops of her breasts as she gets onto the bed, climbs on top of Sho as she had that night. They kiss, and despite Sho's projected confidence, he's shaking the slightest bit now that it's just about time. She runs her hands over his chest, pinches his nipple with a smile. Such a tease. He captures her hand in his own, brings her fingers to his lips and slides a few in, sucking on them without looking away from her eyes.

It takes a little awkward maneuvering, given their eye contact, but she braces herself as best she can, grabbing hold of his cock. He makes the most perfect sound, and she guides him to her. She lowers herself onto him, feeling that wonderful stretch as she takes him in inch by inch. She doesn't move just yet, and he continues to suck her fingers. Finally she can hardly stay still, and her fingers slip from his mouth.

She brings those fingers to her breast, rubs a nipple hard with it. He looks up at her, the hair falling across her eyes and shoulders. "Move," he says, "please move."

She lowers her body down, slowly as she can manage so he doesn't accidentally slip out. His hands go up, she twines their fingers and moves. Finally, Keiko thinks. Oh god, finally. It's unreal, how they're joined, how Jun's in the room. How Jun's watching Sho fuck her without saying a word. But she can hear Jun, can hear him jerking off. He's at the foot of the bed jerking off to the sight of her ass as she rides Sho's cock. She breathes in and out, rocks her hips and hears Sho sigh as her body lets him out, takes him back in.

Nobody knows what to say so nobody speaks. It seems that Sho's about to come so he squeezes her hands, and she stops moving. She feels the mattress move, and she knows that it's time to switch. She can see how wet and slick Sho's cock is when she moves off him. He slides off the bed looking a little pained, a little frustrated and soon he's out of sight because then Jun's lying where he was. Without words he works his erection up and down, biting at his lip before holding still and lowering his eyes so Keiko's will lower too, discover his intent.

She moves onto her hands and knees and allows a moment for Jun to calmly gather up her hair, twisting it around so he's got it all loosely in his fist. And then she's slicking him down with a little saliva, working him with her hand. She leans down, licks a stripe up the underside of him, knowing it's how he always wants her to start. He groans in appreciation. Before too long his grip on her hair is tightening and the fist he's made is putting gentle pressure on the back of her head as she sucks his cock. She works at a steady pace, alternating between taking him in as far as her mouth allows and lapping at the head of him like a tease.

Sho's not gone for long. There's competition for attention when she feels him come up behind her. Jun chuckles a bit because Sho's now lying down on his back, half on and half off the bed. Sho's head and shoulders lie in between Jun's feet and Keiko's legs. Sho nudges Keiko's legs apart, tilts his head up so he can get at her. She moans, the sound lost with Jun's cock still snug between her lips, when Sho's tongue start to lick. He hooks his hands around her thighs, nose nudging up against the dark curls at the junction of her thighs.

Jun grows more insistent, demanding since her attention is divided. She lets him all but fuck her mouth, hearing the telltale sounds of his growing loss of control. As Sho arches up with surprising skill, his tongue lost between her wet folds, Jun sighs. His come hits the back of her throat, and she hums around him, sucking him through his orgasm and swallowing every last drop he's willing to give her. He pats her on top of the head, but she knows it's more a "thank you" than a "good dog" gesture from him.

He removes himself from the playing field, and Sho puts some pressure on her legs, asking her to move. He seems a little grateful to get back onto the bed all the way. He gets her on her back and smiles before bringing his mouth back to finish the job. She can't take much more, knows she'll come if his tongue finds her clit again. Jun's back and soon she's got one mouth between her legs and another closing around her nipple, sucking hard enough to make her cry out in surprise. It's then that Sho hits her just right. She can hear Jun laugh before he's turning her face, leaving lazy kisses against her lips as Sho keeps going. He slips his fingers inside her, unrelenting as his tongue tortures her. 

Her whole body seems to be shaking and her second orgasm comes so quickly that she ends up biting Jun's lip when he's trying to kiss her. And again he laughs, backing away from her. She's in a perfect haze, feeling the mattress creak as Jun disappears. Then Sho's moving, pushing her legs until she's spread wide for him. He kisses her, whispering that he needs her. Can he have her?

"Yes," she manages to say, wrapping her quivering legs around him. Her ankles cross behind his back. "Yes."

He sinks back into her, moaning. He's waited quite patiently, as he has for her all along. She knows she's crying, smiling, relishing every moment, this perfect night they've given her. It's not long before Sho's pace becomes frantic, his movements so quick and hard that she can hardly breathe. She can't help but squeeze, clench around him, losing count of how many times he's made her come. He can't take any more, groaning as he gets off, as though he's disappointed in himself for not performing better.

They lie there, joined, her legs still around him and his dark eyes watching her own. His arms are shaking from holding himself up, and she lets him go. A thoughtful Jun has already returned, looking at the two of them in amusement. "Well that was kind of impressive," he murmurs, coming to Keiko with a damp washcloth. He lingers cruelly between her legs with it, ostensibly cleaning her but at the same time rubbing against her poor, overworked clit. "Stop already," she complains, and this even gets a laugh out of the usually serious Sakurai Sho.

"Yeah yeah," Jun says.

She soon finds herself in the middle of Jun's mattress, laying on her side. Jun's behind her, pulling up the sheet and resting his hand on her hip. She's facing Sho, watching him slowly drift off to sleep with an unguarded smile on his face. If this has all been a dream, she prays that nobody pinches her awake.

\--

She's stiff and sore standing in the shower mist come morning, and when she emerges there's still two men in the bed. Jun's stolen most of the blankets as usual and is facing the wall, still in dreamland. Sho has somehow turned completely around, his feet at the pillow and his head at the foot of the bed. He snores like a foghorn. She's tempted to snap a photo with her phone, preserve this forever.

Keiko slips out, finds one of Jun's dress shirts in a stack of clean laundry and buttons it up, shoves her hair in a ponytail. She serves breakfast - eggs, rice, black coffee, nothing remotely cute or gourmet-quality. The promise of the meal brings them both to the table with messy hair and sheepish smiles. Jun sits to her left and Sho to her right.

The three of them have a lot to talk about.

Instead they eat their breakfast. Jun douses his eggs with pepper, Keiko pours some cream and sugar into Sho's coffee the way she knows he prefers it. It's taken a year and then some, through betrayal and heartache and confusing feelings. She can finally admit it to herself, she can finally accept it. Kitagawa Keiko is in love, and she is deserving of it. 

The sun is up and a Tokyo morning begins.


End file.
